Looks like the VBSA funding has been renewed until 2008. Efforts are underway to move the VBSA from northern VA to norfolk.

Stay tuned.

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=82753&ran=27545

Bill keeps door open for Major League team

By HARRY MINIUM,
The Virginian-Pilot
February 26, 2005

Although Norfolk officials acknowledge the chances of attracting Major League Baseball appear slim, the General Assembly is about to hand the city a major incentive to lure a team.

The state Senate and House of Delegates are expected to pass legislation this weekend extending provisions of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority Act until January 2008. Major provisions of the act, which allows tax dollars to pay for stadium construction, expired last month.

Click here The bill, HB2455, sponsored by Del. Terrie L. Suit, R-Virginia Beach, passed both the House and Senate easily. Another version, with some technical amendments, should also pass easily, Suit said.

Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim said he expects that Gov. Mark R. Warner will sign the bill.

Suit credited William Somerindyke Jr., who led a local group that tried unsuccessfully to lure theMontreal Expos to Norfolk last year, with persuading her to submit and then fight for her bill.

"Will is a really pleasant young man who has put his heart and soul into this," Suit said. "I couldn't see him in a posture where he could not at least try to live out his dream" of bringing major league sports to Hampton Roads.

The bill allows any Virginia locality to use state and local tax revenues generated at a baseball stadium to pay for its construction. Without those tax revenues, Fraim said, it would be prohibitively expensive for a city to construct a stadium.

Both Northern Virginia and Norfolk made bids for the Expos, who late last year relocated to Washington. With Northern Virginia now out of the running for any future baseball team moves, Suit's bill was expected to face an uphill fight.

However, it passed the Senate unanimously and the House of Delegates by a vote of 63-34.

"Terrie Suit deserves credit for that," Somerindyke said. "She basically put this on her shoulders and carried it."

Suit said she was persuaded to do so by Somerindyke.

"Will's big lobbying effort was buying me a cup of coffee at Starbucks," Suit said. "He embodies a regional effort. He's a young man who grew up in Virginia Beach, lives in Chesapeake and works in Norfolk."

Somerindyke said there have been preliminary negotiations to bring the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority from Northern Virginia to Norfolk. That authority would issue bonds for a stadium.

Fraim said that although the odds appear long that any team will move in the next few years, "you have to be prepared just in case the opportunity presents itself."

Somerindyke said his group continues to talk with Major League Baseball and with franchises in other sports.

Great news for Norfolk sports fans. I think it would have been much better, however, if they had expanded it to other sports besides MLB. Soon there will be many hockey teams, and possibly NBA teams, who are looking for a captive market of 1.5 million or more without any major sports competition. Norfolk, along with Vegas, are prime candidates.

Virginia Squires, anyone?

quote:

Virginia Squires, anyone?

ABA fans still live!