Walter Pyramid

Walter Pyramid
Full name	Walter Pyramid
Former names	The Long Beach Pyramid
Location	1250 Bellflower Boulevard; Long Beach, CA 90840
Coordinates	33°47′14″N 118°6′51″W / 33.78722°N 118.11417°W
Owner	Long Beach State University
Operator	Long Beach State University
Capacity	4,200 (With additional seating, a record attendance of 6,912 occurred on November 16, 2012 versus North Carolina)
Surface	Beechwood
Scoreboard	Yes
Construction
Broke ground	December 17, 1992
Opened	November 30, 1994
Construction cost	$23 million; ($45.2 million in 2023 dollars)
Architect	Don Gibbs
Structural engineer	John A. Martin & Associates
General contractor	Nielson Construction Company
Tenants
	Long Beach State Beach men's basketball; Long Beach State Beach women's basketball; Long Beach State Beach men's volleyball; Long Beach State Beach women's volleyball

The Walter Pyramid, formerly known as The Long Beach Pyramid, is a 4,000-seat, pyramid-shaped indoor multi-purpose arena on the campus of Long Beach State University in Long Beach, California.^[4]

History

The Walter Pyramid was officially opened on November 30, 1994, when it hosted a Long Beach State men's basketball game against the Detroit Titans, which aired live on ESPN. A standing-room only crowd of 5,021 saw Long Beach come away victorious with a final score of 71-64.

The Walter Pyramid was designed by Don Gibbs and built by the Nielson Construction Company of San Diego. The building of Walter Pyramid cost approximately $22 million. Each side of the perimeter of Walter Pyramid measures 345 feet (105 m), and it is 190 feet (58 m) tall. ^[5] It is one of only four mathematically true pyramid-style buildings in the United States, the others being the Summum Pyramid in Salt Lake City, Utah, Luxor Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Memphis Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Walter Pyramid rises 18 stories above the Long Beach skyline and its exterior is uniformly clad in sheets of dark-blue corrugated aluminum.

Name change

On March 5, 2005, Long Beach State officially renamed The Pyramid to Walter Pyramid in honor of Mike and Arline Walter. The Walters were given this recognition for a $2.1 million donation given to the university.^[6] In addition to being the vice-president of Levi Strauss & Co., Mike Walter was also a dean for Long Beach State's College of Business Administration from 1993 to 2000.^[7]

Tenants

University athletics

The Walter Pyramid is currently home to the Long Beach State Beach men's basketball and Long Beach State Beach women's basketball programs, as well as the Long Beach State Beach men's volleyball and Long Beach State Beach women's volleyball programs. All LBSU teams playing home games in the Walter Pyramid are nicknamed “the Beach”. The teams were previously known as the 49ers but that nickname was recently dropped. Prior to the construction of the Walter Pyramid on campus, the men's basketball team played some of their games in the Long Beach Arena in downtown Long Beach, and at the on-campus University Gymnasium later renamed Gold Mine, which has just 1,900 seats.

In addition to being the home for Long Beach State athletics, the Walter Pyramid as hosted several NCAA-sponsored events including numerous women’s volleyball NCAA matches, the 2001 and 2003 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championships and the 2003 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Regionals.

Non-university athletics

The Southern California Summer Pro League used the Walter Pyramid during the summer months from 1995 to 2007. The league showcased current and prospective NBA basketball players, including recent draft picks, current NBA players working on their skills and conditioning, and international professionals hoping to become NBA players. The league went on hiatus for the 2008 season and announced its intention to move to Los Angeles for 2009.^[8]

The Walter Pyramid was home to the Long Beach Stingrays, a women's professional basketball team of the now-defunct American Basketball League for a time in 1997 and 1998.

The Walter Pyramid hosts the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships or, in Portuguese language, Mundials.

New Japan Pro-Wrestling presented the show Strong Style Evolved on March 25, 2018, which sold out within minutes. In 2019, they held the finals of the Super J-Cup. The company returned to the venue on May 21 2023, presenting Resurgence.

The Los Angeles Sparks played a 2019 WNBA Playoffs semifinals game at the Walter Pyramid. For the first 5 games of the 2024 season, the Sparks will play their first 5 games at the Pyramid while Stage 3 of upgrades is happening to their main arena.