In Canton, Todd Porter wrote the Pro Football HOF "has to have" Tom Benson HOF Stadium "ready to go for this year’s enshrinement, game and concert." HOF President David Baker "promised" as much when construction started on the Johnson Controls Pro Football HOF Village. The three events around enshrinement weekend are the "largest revenue-producing events" the HOF hosts every year. The east end zone "never was going to be finished for this year’s events." Instead, temporary bleachers will be "brought in again for that side," and there will be a "temporary scoreboard as well." However, after this year, the east end zone and scoreboard "will be finished" for the '18 events (CANTONREP.com, 7/16).
MOVING SHOP: In Buffalo, Jonathan Epstein reports Pegula Sports & Entertainment "wants to move" its corporate HQ from the Fairmont Creamery building to its planned new John Labatt House building in the Cobblestone District, "adding to the brewery and restaurant already destined for the first floor." PS&E serves as the umbrella company for Bills and Sabres Owners Terry and Kim Pegula's business concerns. A move "would put the business next door" to the Sabres and HarborCenter operations that the Pegulas own. It would also "help to fill in the rest of the early 20th-century former manufacturing and storage building, which will also include the corporate headquarters for North American Breweries' Labatt USA" (BUFFALO NEWS, 7/18).
HOT MARKET: In Durham, Ray Gronberg reported a $55M plan to replace the Univ. of North Carolina’s soccer/lacrosse stadium and build the football team a bigger practice complex has "seen its price tag rise" more than 22% because of "design changes and a hotter-than-it-has-been construction market." The bill for Fetzer Field’s successor and the football team’s new indoor/outdoor practice fields is now "expected to approach" $67.4M. The change "got an OK" last week from the UNC system BOG (Durham HERALD-SUN, 7/16).
