Quick Hits

HKS secured a contract to design the Indianapolis Colts’ new stadium. After a glance at renderings, the stadium will have the same retro presence as Conseco Fieldhouse, the home to the NBA Indiana Pacers. The retractable-roof stadium called for a seating capacity of 70,000, with 120 luxury suites and 7,500 club seats on 25 acres south of the RCA Dome, where the Colts presently play … America West Arena in Phoenix has a new naming-rights sponsor for the facility’s premium club and new pavilion inside the front entrance in the form of the Phoenix-area Lexus dealership. Lexus becomes the title sponsor of the 13,000-square-foot exclusive space on the venue’s upper level and the new 16,000-square-foot glass-covered pavilion on the ground floor.

While it has not been a banner year on the court for the New Orleans Hornets, the team looks for good news after the Bonham Group was hired to negotiate naming rights for the New Orleans Arena, which opened in 1999 … The $225 million Agganis Arena has opened on the campus of Boston University, the university’s first new sports facility since 1972. The facility holds a 6,300-seat capacity for hockey games and 7,200 seats for concerts and other events … The Broadway In Miami series will move to the Miami Performing Arts Center after Clear Channel Entertainment inked a 10-year agreement to start the series in 2006. It had been presented by the Jackie Gleason Theatre for nearly 30 years.

Global Spectrum has cut the ribbon on the new 100,000-square-foot Hy-Vee Hall, a convention and exhibition space comprising one of four facilities at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines … The St. Charles (MO) Convention Center is still on target for an April 2005 opening. The facility will be attached to a John Q. Hammons Embassy Suites with 296 rooms set in modern elegance and surrounded by first-class amenities, including a day spa. When finished, the convention center and Embassy Suites will represent a $71 million complex that has been 12 years in the making. The convention center is a $35 million project and will operate as a 154,000- square-foot multi-functional facility. And still no hockey resolution in sight. To find out how arenas are coping in the absence of NHL play, be sure and read the feature in this issue by Rani Cher Monson..
 

Calm on the morning of Dec
26 belies the tragedy about to
happen.

The first wave 30 minutes later
does not come in far but over-
takes tables in an area being set
up for a hotel luncheon as two
set-up employees head  inland.

The largest of the tsunamis are
in progress and swamp the resort.

Water settles and waves begin to
subside. Photos by Joanne Davis

Wounded soldiers from Brooke Army Medical Center were guests of some Dallas Mavericks’ season-ticket holders at American Airlines Center.

This was not a venue decision. This was not a NBA basketball team’s decision. This was the decision of one season- ticket holder that spread to other season-ticket holders that ended up making the night at a basketball game special for 140 individuals. When the Dallas Mavericks hosted the Atlanta Hawks on December 18 at the American Airlines Center, six-year season- ticket holder Neal Hawks gave up his front-row tickets — as did a number of fellow frontrow season-ticket holders — to 140 wounded soldiers who were flown in by American Airlines from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Hawks actually decided last year to give up his seats on three separate occasions. This year’s guests enjoyed visiting with players and getting autographs. When they were introduced, an emotional 90-second ovation cascaded about the men and women who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. For his part, Hawks did not expect so many of his buddies to donate the tickets. He admitted to hoping to get 60 tickets, but by the time December 18 rolled around that number was 140.

Did you make your New Year’s resolutions for 2005? Now that we are a month into the year have you broken any of them? Don’t worry, because we can’t see that sheepish look on your face!

Since it is still early in the year, we thought we would add a few more resolutions for you to consider (if you have not already), courtesy of StressTips.com:

• Set aside at least 15 minutes of quality time for yourself every day.
• Prevent others from walking through your head with their dirty feet (muddying up your ideas).
• Exercise at least three times a week for 30 minutes at a time.
• Learn from your prior stressful experiences and improve your stressbeating skills.
• Establish a personal journal and record positive events, quotes and experiences.
• Take time to listen to good music.
• Read a good book.
• Laugh more and try to see the funny side of life.
• Determine a realistic balance between work and pleasure.
• Celebrate every day of the life that you have.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) engineers Chris Holloway and Galen Koepke place transmitters in a protected air vent at the old Washington Convention Center prior to the implosion of the building.

Experiments aimed at improving emergency radio communications were performed by researchers from the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the old Washington Convention Center before, during and after it was demolished on December 18, 2004. The NIST work was intended to help improve the communications capabilities of first responders. First responders who rely on radio communications often lose signals in shielded or complex environments such as the basements or elevator shafts of facilities. To simulate disaster environments, NIST used real-world “laboratories”— buildings such as the Washington Convention Center that were imploded. Another NIST test occurred in March 2004 at the site of the imploded Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.