THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701110505
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: NHL In Hampton Roads
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 109 lines
Over the next few months, Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn will try to sell the National Hockey League on Hampton Roads.
And he's going to have to sell Hampton Roads on the NHL.
Shinn's sales job will start at 9 a.m. Tuesday when he has an hour to convince the NHL Executive Committee to take seriously his offer to bring major league hockey here.
Early predictions put Hampton Roads at or near the bottom of the list of nine regions competing for expansion franchises. But Shinn, who said the National Basketball League had never heard of Charlotte before he proposed the Hornets, said he's more comfortable as the underdog.
Also Tuesday, the NHL will give Shinn and local leaders a better idea of what they need to do next.
Shinn and the Hampton Roads Partnership penned a preliminary deal Thursday to build a $143 million arena in downtown Norfolk. But the NHL will require that deal to be finalized before awarding Hampton Roads a franchise, some time between mid-February and early summer.
``We've got a lot of work to do,'' Tom Ward, Shinn's point man in Hampton Roads, said Friday. ``This (deal) is just the beginning really.''
Art Collins, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, said he's not sure what else the NHL might require or how the league might want to change the deal struck this week between Shinn and local negotiators.
``We kind of have to wait and see what happens in New York,'' Collins said. ``We'll follow the path that gets laid out for us by the NHL and Mr. Shinn. I'm very hesitant to speculate on what it might be or when it might be.''
Ward said he expects the NHL will require every would-be franchise owner to nail down 12,000 or 12,500 season tickets and 40 luxury suites before being considered for a team. As of Friday, the Hampton Roads Rhinos had sold 5,160 season tickets and 25 suites.
Ward, vice president of marketing for the Charlotte Hornets, said the NHL will also require every element of the arena deal to be locked in.
``Everything has to be in place so we have a rock-solid arena,'' he said.
The site hasn't been finalized yet, design drawings are still preliminary, the private sector hasn't been sold on the deal and none of the 15 local governments or the Virginia General Assembly yet has signed off on the project.
The arena agreement calls for the region to build a $143 million arena - mostly at public expense. Every element of the financial plan will have to be ironed out before a final contract can be signed, Ward said.
According to the agreement in principle signed this week, the private sector will have to provide $30 million up front to help reduce the debt costs. That will be raised by selling naming rights to the arena and getting money from businesses that will sell concessions at the facility.
Shinn has agreed to sign a 30-year lease on the building, paying $1 million a year in rent toward the $8.8 million annual debt. Naming rights and concession fees are projected to raise another $700,000 a year.
But the rest of the annual debt payments will come from local and state taxpayers - and that means they will need to be approved by governing bodies.
Fifteen local cities and counties will be asked to contribute $1.50 per resident per year to help raise $2.3 million in bond payments. None of the councils or boards of commissioners has been briefed on the arena deal yet, and many learned that there was a deal late this week through television or the paper.
The General Assembly approved legislation last year to allow sales taxes generated by a proposed Northern Virginia major league baseball team to repay stadium debt. That legislation would have to be tweaked, but not changed radically, Art Collins said, to generate $4.8 million a year for the Rhinos' arena.
The General Assembly started its annual session this week, but will only meet for 45 days this year, so Rhinos supporters won't have long to get those changes made. Collins and Ward said they were fairly confident that could be done.
Winning the support of local municipalities - particularly large suburban ones - may prove more difficult.
Public officials in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake are not overly enthusiastic about asking their taxpayers for the money to fund an arena in Norfolk with little or no direct return.
Although they've reserved judgment until they have time to review the arena deal, both cities are expected to be a hard sell.
Collins, who was part of the three-man team that negotiated the deal, said he understands the cities' hesitation. But, he said, he thinks the intangible benefits of a major league team and an arena justify the project's hefty pricetag.
``The Rhinos are important and the stadium is important only in terms of how it gets us to a new vision of our community,'' he said.
``We need a vehicle to tell the world who we are and to get our name in front of people in the world. Sports is a way - not the only way - of doing that. When you get the blimp over you, you've arrived. When John Madden's bus drives up, you've arrived.''
Collins led a meeting of city officials Friday morning to describe - and help sell them - the deal to bring a hockey team to Hampton Roads. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic An arena deal is in place, but there's still a
ling way to go before the Rhinos can come to the area. Arena details
must be hashed out, ticket sold, and, most importantly, the NFL and
the region must be convinced.
< THE ROAD AHEAD
The requirements may change, but these are likely steps that must be
taken before the Rhinos could come to town.
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
Color photo by Steve Earley; Digital Enhancement by Robert D.
Voros/The Virginian-Pilot
THE SITE OF THE PROPOSED ARENA
PARKING
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE FRANCHISE ARENA