The GUARDIAN’s Owen Gibson reports LOCOG officials yesterday unveiled the 12,000-seat basketball arena for the '12 London Olympics and said that it is a "template for future games." The completion of the arena "leaves just one venue" at the Olympic site in east London "still to be finished, the landmark Zaha Hadid aquatics centre." The US$68.7M arena is designed to be “deconstructed after the Games as part of an original plan to avoid white elephants, with the 12,000 seats destined for Silverstone and other sporting venues and the Scottish manufacturers of the external structure in talks with Rio 2016 to ship it to Brazil” (GUARDIAN, 6/9).
ALONE ON AN ISLAND? Nassau County Exec Edward Mangano said if voters do not approve the financing plan to build a new Islanders arena, “Plan B is we’ll have to go back to the drawing board. But it’ll likely include probably RFPing out this property without a coliseum because there’ll be no commitment to build one.” Long Island Restaurant Association Exec Dir Brian Rosenberg said if Nassau Coliseum closed or the Islanders relocated, it would be a “black hole for Nassau County.” Association for a Better Long Island Exec Dir Desmond Ryan: “Taking into consideration the fact that Nassau County is now carrying a debt load of about $7 billion, to ask the voters for an additional $400 million, at end of that term that will be about an additional $1 billion dollars added to the debt service. … I don’t think anybody would disagree that this place needs to be redone. The question is, how do they do it?” (Fox Business, 6/8).
KNOW WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM: In Las Vegas, Howard Stutz reports the deal to buy land west of I-15 “for a three-stadium sports complex has collapsed," ending Int'l Development Management President & CEO Chris Milam's plans for a $1.95B project across from Mandalay Bay. CB Richard Ellis Global Gaming Group Exec VP John Knott, whose company was brokering the deal, blames the collapse on the Nevada Legislature’s “failure to approve a bill that would have allowed Clark County to create a special taxing district for one of three alternate and competing Las Vegas stadium projects." The special taxing district “would have allowed a 12 percent event sales tax" to help fund construction. Legislators “raised concerns about stadium financing and said they lacked time to iron out problems in the bill, which was introduced late in the session” (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 6/9).
SHAKE IT UP: In DC, Dan Steinberg reported Shake Shack is "set to open" at Nationals Park next week. Shake Shack and several other entities from New York-based restaurateur Danny Meyer will debut next Monday at a VIP event, replacing Five Guys and "more traditional ballpark options in the upper level right field concourse." Meyer’s concepts -- which include “Blue Smoke (barbecue), Box Frites (fries with dips), El Verano Taqueria (Mexican) and Shake Shack -- were originally scheduled to open in late May" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 6/8).
