D.C. AREA IS UNDERGOING HUGE SPORTS BUILDING BOOM.

Byline: Associated Press 

As if owner Jack Kent Cooke's steady phone calls weren't enough to remind him, Walter Lynch walks around the construction site of the Washington Redskins' new stadium with a due date stamped just above the bill of his hard hat.

It reads: 9-1-97.

``It's a subtle reminder that this project gets done on time,'' said Lynch, project manager for the 78,600-seat stadium in the Maryland suburbs.

Nine miles away in downtown D.C., the work day at the 20,600-seat MCI Center begins at 5 a.m. and ends at 2 a.m. - ``and maybe we'll pick up a couple more hours,'' owner Abe Pollin said.

Pollin desperately wants his new arena open in time to host the season openers for his Washington Wizards, the team now known as the Bullets, and Capitals this fall.

And just up the parkway in Baltimore, the steel and concrete is beginning to rise for a new, 70,000-seat Ravens stadium scheduled for completion in the fall of 1998.

It's a sports-facility construction boom dwarfed only by an area preparing to host the Olympics.

But, unlike the Olympics, the owners of these concrete playgrounds are racing not only to get finished on time but also against each other for the critical luxury-box dollars needed to keep the projects financially viable.

The Redskins haven't been able to sell their 280 luxury suites as fast as they'd hoped. And both the Redskins and Pollin's teams suffered a blow when the Cleveland Browns became the Baltimore Ravens last year.

``We are dumping two big stadiums at one time in the Washington area,'' George Mason U. economist Stephen Fuller said. ``On top of that, Baltimore sold boxes to people in Washington for (Oriole Park at) Camden Yards, and now they'll be doing the same for the new football stadium. It may be too many at one time.''

While the law of supply and demand might be putting a squeeze on luxury-box income, nearly everyone connected with the construction industry is riding an incredible high.

Crews at the sports facilities are working at a breakneck pace. Progress on the new Redskins stadium is particularly startling as Cooke literally moves mountains - in this case, 1.6 million cubic yards of dirt - to complete his $175 million brainchild.

``We're on schedule,'' said Lynch, whose farmhouse headquarters is a reminder that Gus Frerotte next season will be throwing passes on what was recently a hilly cornfield. ``We're building this thing in 18 months, four months faster than any other stadium has been built.''

The stadium's shell is nearly finished, locker rooms are taking shape, and the first of the burgundy-and-gold seats will be installed next month. Still, there are headaches every day - last week, for instance, crews had to reinforce some unexpectedly soft soil that was supposed to support a lower grandstand - and good spring weather will be needed if the 23,000 parking spaces and the fastest-built interchange in the history of the Washington beltway are to be finished on time.

To make sure there are no bureaucratic hangups, Cooke's people - not the state - are building the connecting highways, though with public money. Cooke, who also owns the Daily News, is paying for the stadium himself.

``They're going to do in a year-and-a-half what would normally take three years to achieve,'' said Maryland Department of Transportation spokesman Chuck Brown.

But Cooke is hedging his bets, even if it costs his team a victory or two. The owner is arranging for the Redskins to play all of their exhibition games and three or four of their first regular-season games on the road. Coach Norv Turner has expressed concerns over the plan, but it gives Lynch a one-month cushion past Cooke's deadline.

``I'm surprised I haven't gotten a call from him,'' said Lynch, glancing at his cell phone near the end of a one-hour tour. ``I talk to him constantly. He's a hands-on guy, like he is with the Redskins. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made that are financial or time-related, and if I'm going to spend money, I want to make sure he knows what I'm doing.''

Pollin maintains the same level of interest in the progress of his self-financed $175 million arena and he tours the site three times a week. Unlike Cooke, however, Pollin has conceded that his teams could be playing at their present home, the USAir Arena, come opening day this fall.

One of the snowiest winters in Washington history, plus an unexpected 109,000 tons of contaminated soil that had to be removed from the site, have slowed construction. Also, a federal judge recently ruled that the arena's wheelchair seats did not conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which will likely lead to some design changes.

``We'd like to have 30 hours a day instead of 24,'' said Pollin, who now will only commit to an opening date sometime in the fall of 1997.

Local leaders are hailing the MCI Center as a major linchpin in the revitalization of the downtown Washington. Located next to the Museum of American Art and Chinatown, the arena will be more than just a basketball court-hockey rink, with a restaurant, shopping center and sports museum all in the works. A rebuilt subway tunnel will run far below center ice.

``I think it's a shame that Washington, D.C., has lost the Redskins,'' said local historical society chairman Gary Heurich.