Items from across the Triad and Beyond, compiled by Jordan Green
Construction resumes on downtown ballpark After 10 months of inactivity, construction on the baseball stadium in downtown Winston-Salem resumed on Sept. 22. Winston-Salem Dash owner and ballpark developer Billy Prim announced he has secured the necessary financing to move forward with construction on the stadium during the Winston-Salem City Council meeting on Sept. 21. “All parties involved have signed the required documents and we have placed investor funding in escrow accounts ready to release tomorrow,” Prim said. “We hoped that we would have all financial arrangements completed long before now but as we have said before this is a very complex financing plan that includes more than 50 individual agreements among banks, private investors and the city.” Prim said his goal is to open the stadium on April 1, 2010. City Manager Lee Garrity said all of Prim’s financial agreements had been verified, and he thanked city staff members for their hard work on finalizing a deal that will bring the city’s total investment in the ballpark to nearly $28 million.Denise Bell, the city’s chief financial officer, told the Citizens Baseball Stadium Review Committee last month that in the event Prim defaults on the loan, the city has the second lien holder position behind a banking consortium led by Bank of America.
evin Terry, president of the Winston-Salem Dash, said the Chicago White Sox single-A affiliate has already sold more than 4,100 season ticket packages, 90 percent of the ballpark suites and 90 percent of its corporate sponsorships. — KTB
