It may sound familiar – talk of a sports arena in Virginia Beach… again.
On Monday, Mayor Will Sessoms told NewsChannel 3 that he received yet another proposal for a new arena. He says he hasn’t seen it yet, but he’s looking forward to reviewing it at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The man backing the proposal is John Lawson, the CEO of the W.M. Jordan Company of Newport News.
He says he has been working on it all year and the proposal states that the new arena will be built next to the Virginia Beach Convention Center and will hold about 18,000 for basketball and hockey, and 19,000 for concerts.
Lawson told NewsChannel 3 that they’d be partnering up with a Dallas architecture company and Comcast, the same company that planned to contribute $35 million to the last proposed arena.
This proposal comes almost a year after a failed attempt. There wasn’t enough money to build an arena or a professional sports team to commit to the city.
The last arena was expected to cost $300 million plus an extra $46 million for financing. Virginia Beach would have paid $161 million and the city asked the state for $150 million.
Costs for the new arena haven’t been announced to the public, or how much the city might need to chip in.
When the last plan folded, Mayor Sessoms said he wanted to pursue a new arena in the future.
If the city promptly accepts the proposal, Lawson said the arena could be built before the end of 2016.
