Field of Schemes
sports stadium news and analysis

  

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June 27, 2006

Kibbles 'n' bits

I know it's not a Friday, but ... it's summertime? Whatever excuse you care to give me, here's another sampling of small news items from around the stadium and arena world:

  • The Florida state department of community affairs has thrown a stumbling block in the way of plans for a Marlins stadium in Hialeah, refusing to approve Dade County's master plan for the site on the grounds it may strain the county's water resources and overwhelm the area with traffic. Hialeah and the county have promised to spend $45 million on a reverse osmosis plant for the site, but the state still needs convincing. Add in that the stadium still faces a $100 million funding gap, and the Hialeah stadium plan looks to be ... I suppose "dead in the water" would be absolutely the wrong term to use here.
  • That temporary Olympic stadium in Chicago looks to be a go, as building - and then partially dismantling - a 75,000-seat track-and-field stadium just south of the disfigured ruins of Soldier Field is reportedly part of the city's official bid for the 2016 Games. "When the Olympics are over, part of the facility will be left as a legacy to the Olympic Games and to track and field," Michael Segobiano, Chicago's director of marketing, told the Chicago Tribune. One can only hope it will be made out of plaster and lit by Nikola Tesla's phosphorescent lamps.
  • The great D.C. garage debate continues, with members of the D.C. Zoning Commission ripping into Mayor Anthony Williams' plan for mixed above- and below-ground parking garages alongside the new Washington Nationals stadium. (To recap the controversy in brief: Below-ground expensive, above-ground ugly.) "How much time was put into this plan?" griped commission member Greg Jeffries. "It has to be five days or seven days. It just does not seem like it's fully developed." Added his colleague Michael Turnbull: "We have this fear that we're going to build this temporary thing for 50 years that's not going to look good." The city council is scheduled to vote on the garage plan on July 11; contractors say they need to begin construction by August 1 to have the stadium ready by Opening Day 2008.
  • The Boston Red Sox have won their years-long battle to have the state spend $55 million on traffic and transit improvements in the area around Fenway Park. Because everybody's doing it!

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