Venue News: US Open Stadium To Get Long-Awaited Retractable Roof; Brazil Concerned With Pace of World Cup Venue Construction
Compiled by Karen Hogan, Associate Editor, Sports Video Group
The center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main venue for the U.S. Open, and a rebuilt Louis Armstrong arena are to have retractable roofs installed. The move will bring the U.S. Open into line with Wimbledon and the Australian Open which both have retractable roofs on their center courts. The French Open has announced plans to cover its main court. Two new stadiums will be also be added as part of a $550 million overhaul of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, a project which should be completed by 2018…
…Brazil’s sports minister is concerned about the pace of construction at the 2014 World Cup stadiums that need to be ready in December. Aldo Rebelo said that work needs to be accelerated at five of the six stadiums that are under construction because they “are facing a tight deadline.” The minister said that only the Sao Paulo stadium that will host the opening match next June is comfortably on track to be completed on time. FIFA has made it clear that it wants all 12 stadiums ready by December. It has said it won’t tolerate the kind of delays that afflicted the stadiums used in the Confederations Cup earlier this year…
…A decade-long effort to renovate an aging and dilapidated suburban New York sports arena moved a step closer to fruition this week when officials chose the company that recently opened Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to redevelop the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and its surrounding 77-acre property. The selection of Forest City Ratner over The Madison Square Garden Co. for the $229 million job was announced by County Executive Edward P. Mangano following a months-long competition that initially involved four bidders…
…Development of the $975 million new home for the Minnesota Vikings moved ever so slightly closer to reality Monday when the Minneapolis Planning Commission signed off on the stadium’s bold and glassy design. The approval, after nearly an hour of discussion, came after a 25-member Stadium Implementation Committee — made up of neighborhood residents, businesses and local political leaders — OK’d the design at its final meeting in July. The design plan will be forwarded to the city’s zoning and planning committee next week before going to the full City Council for a vote Aug. 30…
…No matter how many safety measures are in place at stadiums and arenas, experts say there’s no way to totally prevent falls like the one that killed a Braves fan at a game in Atlanta. Ronald Lee Homer Jr. fell 85 feet to his death Monday night after tumbling over the fourth-level railing. Homer’s death was the third at an Atlanta stadium in the past year. Since 2003, there have been more than two dozen cases of fans falling at stadiums across the United States, according to the Institute for the Study of Sports Incidents. But that doesn’t mean the stadiums are unsafe. Though teams and municipalities can build stadiums in the design of their choosing, all must meet strict safety guidelines.