Hate it or love it, the aging 1st Mariner Arena?s days might be numbered.
Media reports published Friday cited unnamed sources who said city and state officials have decided to raze the existing arena, opened in 1962, and construct a modern facility in its place.
The Baltimore Development Corporation in December assembled a nine-member panel to evaluate nine arena proposals from leading developers including Ed Hale, Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse, Turner Development Group, and others.
BDC President M.J. “Jay” Brodie could not be reached for comment Friday.
Hale, chairman and CEO of the Baltimore-based bank which lends its name to the building, said construction of a new arena at the site could take more than three years, and “doesn?t make sense at all.”
“I just disagree that that?s the spot,” he said. “I don?t think you can build it there and have the continuity of events that have been going there for years. Once you get out of the queue and that stops, they?ll look for alternative sites.” The Baltimore Blast indoor soccer team, operated by Hale, would also be without a home field and would “for all intents and purposes…[be] out of business.”
Frank Remesch, the arena?s general manager told The Examiner in February that the arena is on pace for its most profitable year yet.
“Talk of a new arena is frustrating, because we continue to bring in the biggest shows,” Remesch said at the time. “We support a new arena 100 percent, but we also support this arena.”
But a new facility could provide an important boost to the downtown economy, said Janet Marie-Smith, vice-president of planning and design for Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse.
She said her firm?s proposal to the panel included rebuilding an arena on the same site. Marie-Smith said she worked for Atlanta?s Ted Turner when that city demolished the Omni Coliseum in 1997, and completed the Philips Arena on the same site two years later.
“Not only did we find that the [events] we were worried about came back in spades, there was a renewed interest,” she said. “It?s an urban location to revitalize downtown and Baltimore has been a pioneer in doing that. It seems crazy that we wouldn?t stick to that principle.”
