The Charlotte New Arena Committee visited Cleveland's
Gund Arena yesterday. The 10 committee members, city
officials and the media spent 2 1/2 hours touring the
facility on the first day of a two-day, three-city tour of
basketball arenas. The group will now visit the First Union
Center and the MCI Center (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 11/18)....In
Philadelphia, Harriet Lessy notes corporate box holders who
sublet their suites for individual games. Five box holders
were willing to rent their suites out in Veterans Stadium
for a recent Cowboys game, which depending on the location,
went for anywhere from $12,500 to $16,000 per game
(PHILADELPHIA NEWS, 11/18)....In NJ, the Casino Reinvestment
Development Authority has accepted a proposal from Comcast-
Spectacor and Scarborough Properties' for an ice hockey
facility across from the Sandcastle Baseball Stadium in
Atlantic City, NJ. Comcast-Spectacor and Scarborough
Properties will begin designing the facility in hopes to
have it ready by the fall of '99 (Comcast-Spectacor).
...Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, on his vision of the future
in the city with two new stadiums: "We're going to be, for
the first time in two generations, telling people to come
from Houston and Charlotte, to come back to Pittsburgh
because we'll have jobs for them. They can help us build
Pittsburgh again. ... These stadiums, for better or worse,
are the most visible pieces of our ability to reinvent
Pittsburgh" (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 11/18).
