Could Rebuilding Pimlico Race Track Mean The Preakness Stays There?

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- This would be one major home improvement.

Rebuilding Pimlico Race Track, the home of the Preakness.

Alex DeMetrick reports that possibility is about to get a hard look.

Pimlico Race Track's biggest day of the year is the middle jewel of the Triple Crown.

And while it was run in a downpour last year, a loss of water pressure stopped toilets from working and before that --

"We had problems in the past with the electrical., said Tim Ritvo, CEO of the Stronach Group. "I mean the building just so old. Retrofitting seems to be a problem from an engineering standpoint."

Ritvo is CEO of the company that owns Pimlico and Laurel Park.

"Being an old building can only offer so much," he said.

So Maryland's stadium authority will study the feasibility of building a new Pimlico on the same spot and keep the Preakness in Baltimore.

"If we go ahead with a public/private partnership to rebuild the track, they would start construction the day after the Preakness and the hope would be two years later, they'd be done," said Del. Sandy Rosenberg (D-Baltimore).

If the study recommends building a new Pimlico, the Preakness could temporarily be run here at Laurel.

"I mean this place would facilitate that," Ritvo said.

But could Laurel Park run away with the Preakness permanently.

This is a long-standing fear of that in Baltimore.

"If they move the Preakness to laurel we're going to lose hotel rooms, visitations and all the restaurants are going to lose out," Mike Evitts, of the Downtown Partnership said.

But the owner says what makes the Preakness special is being help back by a 146-year-old facility.

"And the experience will never be what it should be unless it's in a new building and hopefully the study comes back favorably to building a new facility," said Ritvo.

And keep and old Baltimore tradition in place.

The stadium authority study would take about a year to complete.