After 70 Years is This Famous Odessa Building Up For Sale?

The Ector County Coliseum has been a part of the Permian Basin for almost 70 years and now it is possibly going to be sold to an outside company for the first time ever.

According to NewsWest 9, the company looking to buy the coliseum is based out of Florida, and Ector County Commissioners voted 3-2 to move forward with negotiations.

"We had an outside entity through a broker ask us if we were interested in it," said Mike Gardner, Commissioner Precinct 1.

Gardner also said that if the decision is made to sell the coliseum other steps would have to be decided on.

"We would have to hire a broker and we'd have to have a contract with someone to go in between and if the court decides to do that we want to make sure we do it the right way," said Gardner.

"Because it's hard to sell something that belongs to the public, there's a lot of steps you have to go through to do that and so this is the first step to see if there's interest in the court in doing that and the steps we'd need to take to bring it forward," Gardner continued.

The new company is reported to want to make it a concert venue again like it was in its heyday back in the 70s and 80s.

I can remember many concerts I went to in the 80s and 90s at the Ector County Coliseum like Pat Benatar, Def Leppard, Metallica, Tina Turner, Hall & Oates, and many more.

Elvis Presley even played two sold-out shows at the Ector County Coliseum on May 29th and 30th, 1976.

It would be great to have the Ector County Coliseum back to the way it was even though it would be the first time since it was built in 1954 that it would not be under county ownership.

Right now the county commissioners have just voted to go forward with talks, nothing has been agreed to at this time but once more information is available I will let you know.