Feature

Council rejects Virginia Beach Arena

Plans for a new 18,000-seat entertainment and sports arena in the US Hamptons resort of Virginia Beach have been rejected by local authorities.

The Virginia Beach Arena, which was to have an approximate size of 500,000 square feet, would have been located adjacent to the Virginia Beach Convention Center, and would have hosted live entertainment and sports fixtures such as NBA and NHL exhibition matches.

However, in an 8-3 vote on Tuesday, Virginia Beach City Council rejected a new proposal from United States Management (USM) to build the venue.

The vote came after USM earlier this year changed its financing plan by replacing a Chinese lender with an American one. USM also said it would borrow $240m (£188.5m/€214m), rather than the initially suggested $170m, with around $210m of that to go towards construction costs.

The ABC News website reported that USM failed to meet one of the seven conditions which required the company to finance the project with investment-grade bonds. 

A spokesman for the council said: “A key element of the arena plan is transferring 5.8 acres of city-owned land in the parking lot near the Virginia Beach Convention Center to the Development Authority. In turn, the authority would have leased that land to a private company, United States Management (USM), which would finance, build, own and operate the arena.”

A USM spokesman said: “We are regrouping after this very unfortunate action. We thank the eight members who stepped up on behalf of this very great opportunity for the city, most of whom spoke very movingly and enthusiastically for the project.

“We are very proud of the three years of hard work that got us to this vote and are sorry for our citizens that their desire to have a world class entertainment and sports arena is in jeopardy. Other than that we have no further comment on our next steps.”

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