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Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Ark., appears to have weathered a "public relations nightmare" and was to host a belated first ticketed event on Oct. 23 after being temporarily shut down due to faulty structural beams.
Alltel Arena was initially set to open Oct. 12 with an L.A. Lakers/Washington Wizards NBA preseason game, but the game was canceled day of after the structural engineer expressed concerns about the viability of raker beams (AB, Oct. 18).
Three weeks prior a crack had been discovered in a raker beam "and we fixed it," said Michael Marion, director of Alltel Arena for Houston-based Leisure Management International. "Everybody signed off on it at the time."
Apparently, the structural engineer had second thoughts about the other beams. "The weekend before the game the structural engineer got concerned that maybe some of the...