AT LONG LAST, BALLMER, CLIPPERS BREAK GROUND ON NEW HOME

The design meetings have been going on for years.

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Technology has evolved throughout the process. Painstaking decisions were made time and time again, right down to what an inch or two difference in legroom between rows would mean or where cupholders should be affixed to the seats.

Finally, Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers are ready to build their new home.

The Clippers’ long-awaited, $1.8 billion, privately funded arena officially got a name — Intuit Dome, it’ll be called when it opens in 2024, the team making that announcement hours before the formal groundbreaking ceremony. The practice facility, team offices for both business and basketball operations, retail space and more will all be on the site.

Ballmer, the team’s owner, simply believes it’ll be like no other building in the NBA.

“Basketball mecca! Basketball palazzo!” Ballmer, in his usual excitable way, said in an interview.

He might be right.

Every detail — from the huge two-sided halo video screen that will hover over the court, to the triple-wide escalators, to how the bathrooms will be designed to get fans back in their seats as quickly as possible — has a purpose. The halo will include 44,000 square feet of 4K LED lighting, slightly more than one full acre, and roughly six times the average size of other “big” screens in NBA buildings. The roof of the dome was designed to accommodate the halo, not the other way around.