Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995 TAG: 9507130018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They see a 25,000-seat arena. In Elliston. Yes, that's the Elliston (pop. 1,243, including suburban Lafayette) squeezed between Dixie Caverns and Shawsville. Maybe they also see Pat O'Brien sitting in the studio, telling viewers CBS has them on the ``smart road'' to the Final Four.
If this gets off the ground, they'd have to put the skyboxes in the side of Poor Mountain.
In what new century are we talking about? And aren't these visionaries from a region that can't even decide whether to put more than 2,000 seats in a new gym at Northside High School?
They see what right now would be the largest basketball arena between domes in Atlanta and Syracuse. They see our North Carolina neighbors with buildings of more than 20,000 seats in Greensboro, Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Raleigh (by 1997). They see the region luring national attractions like MJ - Michaels Jordan and Jackson.
Hey, if St. Louis and Oakland can take NFL teams from Los Angeles, couldn't Elliston woo the Lakers? Now, that would be a real homecoming for George Lynch.
The pieces of the blueprint for the region's future list the proposed arena on the ``long term'' timeline. How about long shot? The region doesn't need a new arena. We don't use what we have enough, and we can't fill what we have when we do use it, either.
The Roanoke Express has done wonders to warm the region's long cold shoulder toward hockey, but has sold out the Roanoke Civic Center four times in two years. College basketball is played there sparingly. Most of the Tech-Virginia games staged locally in recent years haven't sold out.
At the 1991 Metro Conference basketball tournament played here, about the only disappointment was the attendance. The Salem Civic Center doesn't fill for sports events in its smaller-capacity niche.
Virginia Tech has only two hoops sellouts since 1990-91, a span of 66 games at Cassell Coliseum. The Hokies, with one of the better teams in recent history, won the NIT championship, and their average home attendance dropped 213 per game from 1993-94, to 6,241.
Salem has a classy, $10 million ballpark about to open, but a proposed ice rink for hockey practice is getting batted around like a ping-pong ball.
As for luring national events, is having one or two of those annually worth the expense - likely in the $100 million range - of building a 25,000-seat arena? Work began on the Charlotte Coliseum a decade ago, and its construction cost was $52 million. Nashville is dealing with the NHL Devils with a 20,000-seat facility that will cost more than $80 million.
The NCAA isn't going to bring a Final Four here. The region doesn't have adequate hotel space. And just try prying the ACC tournament away from Greensboro and Charlotte. Domes in Atlanta and St. Petersburg are trying to get in line for that event, too.
The sports psyche of the region is so fractured that Roanoke residents won't go to Salem for baseball and Salemites won't drive to Roanoke for hockey. Some locals have been talking up a regional sports authority for years, but some municipalities want no part of it if certain others are involved.
The pastoral atmosphere in Elliston also would be compromised by such a venture, although, perhaps in honor of the displaced bovine population, the arena could be called Cow Palace II.
Of course, the 25,000-seat concept is certainly doable much quicker at a much cheaper price.
Just put a lid on Victory Stadium.
by CNB