Trask is a good arena. But Wilmington desperately needs a new gym downtown in order to get events. It doesn’t have to be huge. 7-8K would do the job. 9K max.

Wilmington is about where Charleston was 30 years ago with infrastructure. McAlister Field House (where The Citadel plays) was our only major arena. Even that got renovated in the late 1980s. It was a WWII building. People had to go to Columbia or Charlotte for anything major. Our baseball stadium was a field in the middle of a neighborhood. The RiverDogs probably move if that stadium wasn’t built in ‘97.

You guys didn’t even have I-40 until 1990. The only way to go anywhere was US 17, 117 or 70. If Wilmington built a downtown arena, it could host the CAA tournaments, some NC high school stuff, and decent-sized concerts. Maybe even a SPHL hockey team.

If Wilmington’s leaders had any foresight, there would be a SAL or Carolina League baseball team in Wilmington playing in a downtown stadium. I read there was one year Wilmington had a Double A team, but they couldn’t sell alcohol because the games were at UNCW. Then they had the SAL team for a year, and the same thing happened. The NIMBYs don’t want extra traffic that would come from a new arena or stadium.