King County officials confirmed yesterday that Kingdome
emergency repairs could run as much as $15M over budget, which
would bring the cost of the project up to $47.5M.  King County
Exec Gary Locke said officials are considering a possible ticket
tax or fee on Kingdome events to pay for the excess costs.
Earlier this week, the county sued its insurance carrier on the
Kingdome, Allendale Mutual Insurance, alleging the firm refused
to acknowledge the county's damage claims (SEATTLE POST-
INTELLIGENCER, 11/11).

     The Washington DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) has
delayed its decision on the approval of a city arena.  The agency
spent several hours Wednesday reviewing the arena deal struck
between Bullets/Capitals Owner Abe Pollin and the National
Capital Development Corporation (NCDC), a nonprofit consortium of
District entrepreneurs who would oversee construction of the
facility.  The RLA board decided it did not have enough
information to recommend turning over city land to NCDC and
agreed to reconvene December 1 to review a counter-proposal from
BET President Robert Johnson.  Johnson has offered to guarantee
repayment of arena bonds and eliminate the city's financial risk
if Pollin would agree to sell him a share of the Bullets.  NCDC
spokesperson Kwasi Holman predicted that the agency will approve
of his group's deal with Pollin because it "makes such economic
sense":  "We are going to make out deadlines and build this
arena" (Howard Schneider, WASHINGTON POST, 11/11).

     Red Sox Exec VP John Buckley said yesterday that the Red Sox
are willing to invest money in a coordinated plan that would tie
together a downtown convention complex and a new baseball park.
Buckley: "We've told every government official who has wanted to
talk to us that we have to deal with the 82-year-old facility we
have.  But we seem to end up on the backburner as something to be
dealt with later."  Buckley said that the Red Sox have "all but
ruled out rebuilding Fenway Park" because of prohibitive costs.
Buckley added that the team was "disappointed" that last month's
Boston Redevelopment Authority report on a new convention center
and football stadium did not deal with the prospect of a baseball
facility: "We are anxious to sit down as a developer/private
investor to ensure baseball's future in the city of Boston, which
should not be taken for granted."  In a related development,
Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that he would be willing to
discuss a downtown stadium proposal (Phil Primack, BOSTON HERALD,
11/11).