PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Penguins will wait until the 2010-11 season to open their new arena, rather than open it during the 2009-10 campaign as initially planned, a spokesman said.

Waiting until the 2010-11 season will give the team time to do the building right, both for the team and city, spokesman Tom McMillan said Thursday.

"The right thing to do is to do it the right way. The matter of a few more months will enable us to do that," he said.

The Penguins will lose a couple of months of revenues, but the trade-off will be worth it, he said. The wait is not expected to increase the arena's $290 million cost.

In other arena developments Thursday, the city-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority hired Oxford Development and Chester Engineers to oversee the arena's design and construction.

By The Associated Press