Venue News: Japan’s Olympic Organizers Scrap $2B Stadium Plan; Coyotes, Glendale Amend Arena Lease

Three years after Japanese Olympic organizers selected a vast, sleek stadium design by a prominent Iraqi-British architect for the centerpiece venue of the 2020 Summer Games, the government announced that it would scrap the plan and start over because of spiraling costs, writes The New York Times. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, came in response to growing public anger over the stadium’s estimated cost, which has ballooned to more than $2 billion — an amount that would have made it by far the most expensive Olympic stadium, and probably the costliest sports venue, in history. The main stadium for the 2012 Olympics in London cost just one-third as much…

…The Arizona Coyotes and the city of Glendale agreed to amend an existing lease agreement on Thursday, though the deal may only be a temporary fix in the team’s ongoing saga to remain in the desert. According to the Associated Press, the amended deal, which will be voted on by the Glendale City Council on Friday, calls for the original 15-year, $225 million agreement to be cut to two years, expiring on June 30, 2017. It also would trim the management fee the city pays annually to the Coyotes from $15 million to $6.5 million and shift all hockey-related revenue to the team instead of Glendale, which would generate approximately $6 million for the Coyotes. A five-year out clause if the team lost more than $50 million that was part of the original agreement also has been removed…

…Five weeks before their first home preseason game, the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium still looks like a full-blown construction site, writes the Miami Herald. The seats are in place, but the field is dirt. The walls are up in the posh new clubs, but with little else. Still, Tom Garfinkel — the team CEO and driving force behind the two-year modernization plan — is confident that the hard deadline for the stadium to be usable, Aug. 29, will be met. More than 1,000 construction workers are logging 10-hour days, even on Saturdays and Sundays, to make it happen…

…Kentucky senior associate athletic director Russ Pear remains confident that Commonwealth Stadium will be ready for the Wildcats’ Sept. 5 season opener despite being “stressed about things” because of this month’s heavy rains, writes the Associated Press. Some finishing touches remain on the $120 million facelift that began in December 2013. The team’s upgrades include new locker rooms, training and recruiting rooms, the latter of which gives recruits and their players a place to mingle before games. The athletics department is funding the project…

…The panel in charge of overseeing construction of the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium has been in tense closed-door negotiations about what could be a $50 million dispute over change orders and cost adjustments, the outgoing treasurer of the board said Wednesday. His “worst-case” estimate puts the problem between $35 million and $50 million, but he acknowledged it could be less or more, according to the Star Tribune. The dispute is between Minneapolis-based contractor Mortenson, Dallas-based architect HKS, and the MSFA Authority, which oversees the construction on behalf of the public. The Vikings, who are not part of the closed MSFA meetings, say they have not seen numbers as high as the outgoing treasurer cited.