The Ames/ISU Ice Arena is not just getting a facelift — it’s getting a whole new face.As construction continues, members of the ISU men’s and women’s hockey teams have already toured their future home arena, scheduled to open at the end of February.”It looks great,” said ISU men’s head coach Al Murdoch. “I know the university and city architects involved did a lot of great planning and preparation to put this building together.”One of the major differences in the two buildings is the seating structure. While the capacity will not be significantly larger than the old arena, Harold Pike Construction of Ames made sure the design will be more accommodating to fans.”Access to the seating is from the top down,” said construction manager Don Wells. “We have a handicapped lift that will be able to access the wheelchairs to the top [of the stands], and there will be some wheelchair access along the bottom layer, too.”The wooden benches of the old site will give way to a precast-concrete seating structure that Wells said will be safer and more durable.Another big change in this new stadium involves the ability to use different areas of the arena. Storage areas have been built under the bleachers, and the team’s dressing rooms are behind the seating area.”The team locker rooms and storage rooms gives them an area that allows them to utilize that extra space,” Wells said.Offices and multipurpose rooms are built into the plan, as well as a large cutoff area that will be used as storage for recreational services.Wells said the most important feature of the new arena is a set of sub-floor heating pipes that will prevent frost from forming underneath the floor, which can damage the ice.The arena was originally scheduled to be finished by Feb. 15, but progress has been slightly delayed. Wells said he hopes the building will be ready for use when the Cyclones finish their regular season Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 against Northern State University of Aberdeen, S.D.”The other building has not survived 20 years very well,” Wells said. “I think they’re going to get a lot of use out of this building here for the next 50 years.”While the old arena is still functional, the location was seeing more use than was originally planned, and a change was needed.”It was just a matter of time with the high amount of usage that the old facility would become overused and outdated,” Murdoch said. “I wish we could have just kept it as a practice facility for six months of the year, but as it turned out, all of the ice programs grew so much that we have to have ice in Ames 12 months per year. It has been that way for about eight or nine years now.”The old arena will remain open for now, but nothing has been planned for the future.”The [old] building served a great purpose,” Murdoch said. “But at the same time, I think people are going to be real pleased to be in the new one.”