Baltimore?s Arena Advisory Panel continues to listen to presentations ofdevelopment proposals for a new city venue that would replace the 45-year-old 1st Mariner Arena.
“We?re still a long way off, but we?re taking incremental steps,” Don Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee and a member of the arena panel, said Friday at a meeting of the Camden Yards Sports and Entertainment Commission.
“I think a new arena is going to be coming to Baltimore,” Fry said. “We think this will be a good asset to the sports venues.”
In November, the Baltimore Development Corp. received seven proposals from developers, including Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, Turner Development, Hale Properties LLC, Greenberg Gibbons Commercial Corp. and Cormony Development LLC, Harrison Development LLC, Team 52 Development LLC.
The estimated cost of construction of a new arena would be $128 million to $160 million in 2007 dollars, according to an arena feasibility study completed this year by the Maryland Stadium Authority. Proposals have included 11 different possible locations throughout the city, including the current 1st Mariner site.
In other sports-related development news, representatives from US Lacrosse said they could begin construction on 42,000-square-foot National Lacrosse Center at Harbor Point in about 18 months. US Lacrosse plans to move its headquarters from its present location next to the Johns Hopkins University campus.
The $25 million project would include national administrative offices, a Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame and a 2,500-seat exhibition stadium on the waterfront.
“It?s really going to be a great and highly visible facility,” said Steve Stenersen, executive director of US Lacrosse. “We?ve been saying this is the best site on the east coast to build [the facility].”
Stenersen said the site would attract hundreds of thousands of lacrosse fans to Baltimore, serve as a valuable community resourcefor youth and high school teams and solidify Maryland as the “cultural home for lacrosse.”
Gary Gill, a member of US Lacrosse?s Board of Directors, asked the members of the commission to do everything they could to ensure the project stayed in Baltimore. The project will need about $7 million from the state, Gill said.
“We?ve got the ball in our hands right now,” Gill said. “We can?t let this ball get out of Baltimore.”
