THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250531
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 43 lines
The mayors of two area cities have persuaded the Hampton Roads Partnership to keep a proposed 20,000-seat sports arena on its agenda for future meetings, but said they will not ask the group for support until there is a formal proposal for an arena.
The partnership, a group of more than 50 business, government, civic and military leaders, announced almost two months ago that it would not fund a study to determine if the region would support an arena even though it had been asked to do so by the region's mayors.
Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim, chief proponent of a sports arena, was instead asked to find a source to fund the study. He has since put the study on hold in part because of a controversy over water between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
When they declined to fund the arena study, partnership officials asked Fraim and Hampton Mayor James L. Eason to provide a report that would bring them up to date on the arena issue.
Fraim and Eason delivered that report Wednesday at an executive committee meeting at Norfolk Southern Tower. The lengthy report focused on the region's chances of landing a major sports franchise and supporting an arena if one were built, and includes portions of consulting reports done for Norfolk and the Sports Authority of Hampton Roads over the last two years.
Fraim gave a short presentation summarizing Norfolk's efforts to assemble an ownership group for an NBA or NHL team and the city's contacts with NBA officials, including commissioner David Stern.
He and Eason then asked the executive committee to keep the arena on its docket for all future meetings, but said they would not ask for support until they are ready to present a formal proposal to build an arena, something that could be years away.
Partnership president Barry DuVal said officials agreed to keep the arena issue on the partnership docket.
DuVal said the partnership's executive committee ``has an interest in this issue'' adding that it is one of five or six items to be discussed at a retreat later this summer.
KEYWORDS: PROPOSED ARENA by CNB