Rays Owner Stuart Sternberg yesterday said he hopes the coalition of civic and community leaders searching for a possible location for a new Rays ballpark could identify the area in "well under a year." The coalition "had suggested its work could take up to 18 months." Sternberg: "The sooner the better. ... I want them to consider sites that would be in the best interests of this region and would help us be able to thrive for a very long time. I don't think anything is off the table. We could play on the middle of the bay on an island if they think it's the best idea" ( ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 9/16 ). SWIMMING UPSTREAM: MLB.com's Joe Frisaro noted Miami auto dealer Norman Braman's lawsuit over the public funding of the Marlins proposed ballpark "has erased any chances of ground being broken in November on the 37,000-seat retractable-roof park at the Orange Bowl site." Marlins President David Samson said, "Can [we] still get into the new stadium in 2011? The answer is, we don't know. We really are looking at it with our construction manager, trying to figure out what the risk is and how we can do things. But we don't want to make mistakes" ( MLB.com, 9/15 ). BUILDING BLOCKS: The HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL's Sean O'Leary reports ESPN is "once again expanding at its 116-acre Bristol campus with the construction of a 130,000-square-foot office building for its technical support staff." This is the "fourth major construction project ESPN has undertaken since 2004." The new four-story building is due to be completed in 2010 ( HARTFORD BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9/15 issue ). DOME RUN: Indianapolis' Capital Improvement Board yesterday said that the sale of memorabilia from the soon-to-be demolished RCA Dome "has not raised much money." As of September 5, the "sales of everything from seats to turnstiles made about $170,000" ( INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 9/16 ).
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