Canopy will glow at night, even if Bengals don't

CINCINNATI- Paul Brown Stadium will glow in the dark, even if nobody's home.

The football stadium, which is about three-quarters built, is about to get two Teflon-coated fiberglass canopies. Workers early next month will begin attaching the twin canopies, whose shape resembles the Nike Swoosh, onto 750 tons of steel supports on the stadium's upper deck.

"With minimum lighting, we'll have the roof glow at night, even when there isn't an event," architect Ron Turner said.

The playing field also can be lighted, but that's not much of an issue for the Bengals lately.

The NFL tends to schedule more successful teams to play at night to fulfill national television requirements. The Cincinnati Bengals, with the NFL's worst record in the '90s, haven't played a night game at home since a Thursday in December 1997.

Even so, voters approved a half-cent sales tax surcharge in Hamilton County to build new stadiums for the Bengals and the Cincinnati Reds.

The canopies will protect a few thousand people in the upper deck from rain, sun and snow, but mostly they are for effect. The glow would be visible not only from downtown, but also the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and from an interstate highway being build alongside the stadium.

The canopies are supposed to last 25-30 years. They cost $5.7 million, including the steel, and will be installed by Birdair, which has installed the same material as the roof of the Georgia Dome, the Millennium Dome in London and over the Great Hall at the Denver International Airport.

-compiled by staff and wire reports