1st Mariner

New positionsU.S. Aluminate selects Askew as its presidentUnited States Aluminate Co. named Timothy E. Askew president of the manufacturer of alumina-based chemicals for the catalyst, water treatment, pulp, paper and construction industries, which has its headquarters in Baltimore.The Boston University MBA graduate was formerly general manager for the firm. He previously was a management consultant with the Boston office of KPMG Peat Marwick.McCormick appoints Jenkins accounting managerMcCormick & Co. of Sparks named Katherine A. Jenkins corporate accounting manager.

It didn't match the drama of its feat the previous week against the same opponent, but the Blast achieved the same result last night at 1st Mariner Arena. Exactly a week after notching the first shutout in its history at Chicago, the Blast mastered the Storm again, sweeping the season series with a 16-8 victory before an announced home crowd of 7,436. It was the most competitive of the teams' four meetings. The Blast had won the each of the previous three by at least 10 points. Chicago (15-14)

The Blast is the regular-season champion of the National Indoor Soccer League. With last night's 12-2 victory over the Philadelphia KiXX at 1st Mariner Arena, the team clinched first place in the fledgling league and guaranteed that the championship game will be played April 11 in Baltimore. It was the sixth consecutive win for the Blast (13-2), which avenged its only home defeat of the season and beat the KiXX for the third time in four meetings. The Blast is 7-1 at 1st Mariner with only one regular-season game remaining there - against the lowly Massachusetts Twisters.

Is it curtains for the Senator Theatre? The historic and beloved movie house is heavily in debt, and the bank has decided to foreclose. An auction could come as quickly as next month. If the right bidder steps forward, a sale could potentially give the landmark a fresh debt-free start. But a public sale on the sidewalk that resembles the walkway outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre would leave the fate of the Senator in the hands of the highest bidder, who might prefer to hold church services in the grand old palace instead of movie premieres.

Leaders of the city's west-side redevelopment effort and other groups turned out yesterday to oppose a City Council bill that would amend a 2-year-old ban on new billboards to allow more than a dozen four-story-tall advertisements on the former Baltimore Arena. Mayor Martin O'Malley supports legislation that would allow Baltimore Blast soccer team owner Edwin F. Hale Sr. -- a political supporter -- to sell space on 14 billboards on the city-owned arena as a way of offsetting financial losses by the team, which plays there.

The $300 million sports and entertainment venue to replace Baltimore's aging 1st Mariner Arena should be an iconic structure developed with "maximum private financial support," city officials said yesterday in a formal request for developer proposals. State and city leaders had announced plans last month to tear down the arena and replace it with an 18,500-seat facility - one large enough to draw the biggest concerts and acts and potentially attract a professional basketball or hockey team.

Almost 1 1/2 years after his indictment on federal influence-peddling charges, former state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell Sr. continues to serve on the board of directors of First Mariner Bancorp. Edwin F. Hale Sr., the company's chief executive officer and chairman of the board, declined to answer a reporter's questions about Bromwell. But a Hale aide confirmed that the Baltimore County Democrat sits on the bank's 16-member board of directors. His term expires April 24. The aide added that Bromwell would not stand for re-election when shareholders meet in May. In court papers unsealed this week, Bromwell in 2001 boasted about his connections to Hale.

The two news items from early and late Wednesday weren't exactly related, but they were more than coincidental. In the morning: a front-page story in The Sun about how The Relic on Howard Street (aka 1st Mariner Arena) still makes a decent profit. At night: a settlement that allows the NBA's SuperSonics to move from Seattle to Oklahoma City. Two items, both bad news for Baltimore. At least for those of us here who feel the NBA void, now at 35 years and counting. Or who, if nothing else, wonder whether we'll ever see a halfway-decent arena of any size here in our lifetime.

Looming five-story images of cars, sneakers and Cokes may soon enwrap the 1st Mariner Arena in downtown Baltimore because a city Circuit Court judge refused yesterday to halt construction of 14 billboards on the building's facade. Depending on who is talking, the 54-foot-tall illuminated advertisements will either enliven the arena's neighborhood or scare away prospective tenants of nearby apartment and office buildings. A group of owners whose properties face the arena -- some of the biggest business names in the city -- are challenging the legality of the billboards, saying the signs are a visual disaster in the making.

All the trappings befitting a group poised for superstardom were in place: Big-budget industrial-looking set, check. Pyrotechnics, check. Supersoaker guns shooting yards of sudsy foam? Check. The Jonas Brothers, the latest product of Disney's almighty teen machine, packed 1st Mariner Arena last night with a calculated spectacle of a show. The music - tuneful and fizzy with overly familiar punk-lite guitar riffs and chord progressions - was nearly drowned out by the deafening screams from prepubescent girls filling the sold-out arena.