The conversion, scheduled to cost £8 million, was funded partly by a consortium of Bovis, GEC and Mecca Entertainment, and partly by the land owners London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), the Sports Council of Great Britain, the Amateur Athletics Association and Tower Hamlets London Borough Council.

The architects were Stewart K. Riddick & Partners with the steel frame designed by Fairhursts and assembled by Graham Wood.

This involved introducing a permanent Olympic-size ice rink, 48 luxury hospitality boxes with views over the arena, two brand new team dressing rooms, a completely refurbished foyer and box office, plus a state-of-the-art SACO SmartVision video scoreboard, the only one of its kind outside the US.

One reason for this was its rather isolated geographical position, combined with poor local road and public transport access and limited parking space, although it was well served by the Crossharbour and London Arena DLR station.

On 18 November 1989, the Arenaball Transatlantic Challenge, the first ever Arena Football League exhibition game in Europe,[6] was played there, with the Detroit Drive winning over the Chicago Bruisers 43–14.

It hosted the Lennox Lewis vs. Francois Botha heavyweight boxing fight in 2000, and the Naseem Hamed vs. Manuel Calvo featherweight bout in 2002.

The 1998 and 1999 editions of the Brit Awards were held at the arena,[7] and from 1989 until 2001, it was also the annual venue of the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.

[9] In December 2005, it housed the annual 'Crisis Open Christmas' event (held the previous year in the Millennium Dome) providing food, accommodation and various medical and social services to homeless people in London, organised by the London-based homelessness charity Crisis.