The Atlanta Hawks aren’t sitting on the bench as the city’s other pro teams try to lure more fans with new stadiums and entertainment venues.

Bruce Levenson, managing partner of the Hawks, said team officials are in the preliminary stages of “reimagining” their home, Philips Arena, and the area around it, a 120-acre collection of downtown parking lots and railways called the Gulch.

The idea comes as the Atlanta Falcons prepare to start construction on a more than $1 billion downtown stadium and the Braves get ready to name the development team for a mixed-use project around their proposed Cobb County ballpark. Like the Falcons and Braves, the Hawks want to create a richer experience to pull fans off their couches and get them to the game.

“We have this enormous, infamously called Gulch area right next to our arena,” Levenson said in an exclusive interview with Atlanta Business Chronicle. “We’ve got to figure out how to make that a destination spot for our fans.”

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