CIAA Hall of Fame proposed for DT Raleigh

[cityboi]

Raleigh Announces Plans For CIAA Hall Of Fame, Headquarters

POSTED: 11:31 am EDT May 18, 2004

UPDATED: 12:57 pm EDT May 18, 2004

RALEIGH, N.C. -- More than 100,000 people attended the 2004 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Basketball Tournament in Raleigh. Now, the city wants to capitalize on the tournament's success.

Tuesday, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker announced fund raising will begin to raise $4.7 million to expand the CIAA's role in the capital city.

Tuesday, Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker announced fund raising will begin to raise $4.7 million to expand the CIAA's role in the Capital City.

The city announced plans to establish a permanent CIAA Hall of Fame downtown. There are also plans to move the CIAA's headquarters from Hampton, Va. to Raleigh.

"The CIAA has been so successful here that we really want it to be a permanent part of our community in terms of the Hall of Fame as well as the headquarters being here. It's good business for us and also very good business for the CIAA. It should be a lot of fun for our residents and visitors to our community," Meeker said.

Raleigh hosts the tournament through 2005 and is working to land the tournament through 2008. It has become Raleigh's biggest income generator among sports and entertainment events and conventions held in Raleigh.

Leaders say the plans announced Tuesday are independent of whether he CIAA chooses Raleigh to host the basketball tournament for an unprecedented nine years.

Established in 1912, the CIAA is the nation's oldest black athletic conference, with 12 member institutions, all of which are Historically Black Colleges and Universities spanning the east coast from Maryland to North Carolina. The three Triangle areas CIAA schools are St. Augustine's College and Shaw University, both in Raleigh, and North Carolina Central

he he....come on Greensboro get those ACC Hall of Fame plans going

[cityboi]

Like a CIAA hall of fame in Raleigh, Greensboro should make a hall of fame home for the ACC. according to this article from a web log, plans are in the works for an ACC hall of Fame as well but they are being mighty quiet about it and the process seems to be dragging (as usual in Greensboro) Ed Cone says he wants the hall of fame at the southend of downtown Greensboro at Elm and Lee Streets but Id rather see it built next to the future downtown ballpark. Keep the sports attractions together. It also makes logical sense to build the ACC hall of fame next to the ballpark because local leaders are trying to lure the ACC baseball tournment to the new ballpark and make it the permanant home for the tourney.

From Ed Cone

"Could an ACC sports hall of fame really go up at the corner of South Elm and Lee in downtown Greensboro? Maybe, but there’s a lot of work to be done before it can happen.

The City Council on Tuesday authorized staff to solicit public input and come up with a redevelopment plan for the site. The ACC hall of fame is one possibility under consideration.

When I floated the idea in a column early this year, I didn’t know that a group led by former UNC star and ex-City Council member Dick Grubar was already at work on a plan. That plan, which does not specify the South Elm site, is still in the works, although the current turmoil over league expansion is soaking up a lot of attention these days at the ACC offices in Greensboro.

Grubar’s group, which includes the Greensboro Sports Council, Merchants Association, and a development organization, hopes to have a detailed feasibility study completed by a Washington, DC-based company within the next thirty days. The group has had general discussions with the ACC, and the league has given them a green light to proceed to a certain point.

Grubar is adamant that any ACC sports hall of fame not be limited to dusty displays of old trophies and jerseys that would attract visitors for a couple of years and then peter out. He wants interactivity and other high-tech goodies. That dovetails with the league’s desire for an educational component to the exhibitions, but it will also raise the price.

If the planners see the project as doable, the critical issue will be money. Financial support from the ACC won’t be forthcoming, and the member schools may be reluctant to let the Hall approach their big donors. But if this idea catches fire, then I think the money can be found from all kinds of sources, including foundations, ACC alumni, corporate sponsors with ties to the ACC (JP, Nike, Chik-fil-A…), federal redevelopment grants, and more.

South Elm and Lee would be a good site – close to the highways, the Coliseum, and the downtown Civil Rights Museum.

Greensboro is lucky to have Grubar leading this effort. But our elected officials and business leaders can’t wait for him to do it all – we need to be actively looking for ways to make this dream a reality."