With serious questions being raised about glittering Uptown projects worth about $250 million, the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority honcho has lots of work to do. Both the $195m. NASCAR Hall of Fame and the suddenly $62m. Uptown baseball stadium count Newman as a major motive force. His credibility has taken a serious hit this week.

First, the expected kabuki theater of Charlotte city council pretending to question a Newman-led $32m. hike in the budget for the NASCAR Hall. Council pretended to be shocked by the hike, pretended to have questions, which and Newman and crew pretended to answer. Standard operational procedure in Charlotte. Except this time the Uptown paper of record actually opted to follow-up on Newman’s answers regarding the cost of exhibits at other similar attractions around the country.

Last week, in framing the issue for the council, Newman and associates via a memo from City Manager Curt Walton said that the increased spending on the NASCAR Hall would result in a $750 per square foot expenditure on exhibit space. This was portrayed as roughly in the middle of other facilities which had, council and the public were told, costs of $1100, $600, and $500 per square foot.

Julia Oliver makes a few phone calls, finds out that all those numbers are in fact closer to $300 per square foot.

Sooo, this means Charlotte is on the hook to pay over double the going rate for exhibits at similar facilities around the country. Altogether now — that’s World Class.

But the baseball fiasco is even better. Or worse. Or both. Despite all the land swaps, legal wrangling, and fancy footwork from Newman and Center City Partners honcho Michael Smith, the fact remains that Charlotte Knights owner Don Beaver, Newman’s former boss, does not have the money to build a stadium. All the legal slicing and dicing was intended to relieve Beaver of the need to pay taxes on an Uptown stadium, thereby freeing up cash for debt service. But the cost of financing anything is rapidly shooting through the roof, jumping what started as a $35m. stadium when this process started to some $62m. and counting.

The Knights are being far from clear on their financials, refusing to even spend the little bit of money needed to finish final design work on a stadium and provide renderings to the public. Pay no attention to the attempts to blame Jerry Reese for this situation. Had the financing for the stadium been square, ground would have been broken by now and the “cost increases” folded in the stadium project a la ImaginOn, the Whitewater Center, and, yes, the NASCAR HOF. Again, this is how Charlotte operates.

There is already talk of going back to the county for up to an additional $10m. to make the numbers work. The big hitch is the timing is all wrong, what with the board of commissioners standing for election in a few weeks. Hence, Newman and backers of more Uptown glitter have much work to do.