[picard102]

4) Redevelop MTCC with a mix of AAA Office, Hotels, entertainment and arts uses (new movie theatres to complement TIFF? 70mm IMAX?), smaller event spaces, restaurants, shopping, etc decked over the tracks to take advantage of proximity to Rogers Centre and CN Tower.

Does Oxford have any reason to do any of this? They have a hugely successful convention centre and it's not slowing down. Why would they lose 5 years of guaranteed revenue to chase having to be more hands on with multi tenants?

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

...with those Foster Towers depicted, the 2 mil square feet thing are already there if your willing to go up instead of out. No need to look for a new space.

 

[milkycontent]

Who is going to build this new stadium? Skydome was built for (iirc) $400MM 1989 dollars by the province, sold to Rogers for 1/10 its cost, and now is worth billions. The public should should not be in the stadium building business. And yes, I know BMO Field was built (at least in part, I don't recall the details) by the city

CF and MLSE? I agree the public sector shouldn't build sports venues for billionaire owners. I honestly don't think the province should be in the convention building business either. I'm pretty aligned with John Michael McGrath's analysis on this.

Does Oxford have any reason to do any of this? They have a hugely successful convention centre and it's not slowing down. Why would they lose 5 years of guaranteed revenue to chase having to be more hands on with multi tenants?

No, but if MTCC vacates they'll no longer have a tenant. Oxford could presumably run their own convention centre business, but they would suddenly be competing with this hypothetical 2M square foot facility and maybe they'd want to pivot to other uses.


I'm not suggesting any of this can or should happen, and obviously there are a lot of stakeholders with different interests who would all need to play ball, which would be unlikely. But if Ford is going to ram a new convention centre down our throats, maybe this is a way to mitigate any unnecessary lake fill (worst possible outcome imo) and keep our city semi-functional. Like I said, thought experiment.

 

[taal]

You'd think Ford would have started with consulting / speaking to Oxford ... maybe he did and they expressed no interest.

 

[JMSRead]

If Ford wanted to build an island for a new park or a world class museum or a Navy Pier type thing, or even an NFL sized stadium I could at least get behind it in a 'it's irresponsible and will probably never happen but at least it's a fun idea' way. But I sincerely don't understand the thinking of going to these lengths to create a breathtaking view for users of a convention centre who will mostly be inside in windowless rooms.

 

[Red October]

You're giving way too much credit into the amount of actual thinking that went into this fantasy.

These are not serious people and this is not a serious proposal.

 

[picard102]

No, but if MTCC vacates they'll no longer have a tenant. Oxford could presumably run their own convention centre business, but they would suddenly be competing with this hypothetical 2M square foot facility and maybe they'd want to pivot to other uses.

I have serious doubts that the only good convention centre in the city will suddenly become unoccupied.

 

[Brian S-W]

I was taught that using drugs could make you stupid in the head, I didn’t realize dealing drugs also could result in having criminally-inspired mush brains.