Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 89 65.0%

  • No

    Votes: 39 28.5%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.6%
  • Total voters
    137
CalgaryTiger said:
If CSEC can get CAA ICON excited about Calgary NEXT, they may be on to something.

My design mind goes to all the cool ways you could blend a outdoor stadium and arena together with some retail and restaurants. You could even end up sharing a concourse/team facilities/press box all on one side. The NHL and CFL don't exactly have a lot of crossover in their schedules. Add in a little mini Freemont street canopy one one end that over looks the river and integrates into both buildings. Put both together in a "T", and I think you've got something for people to get excited about. Especially if you make the stadiums playing surface open to the public when its not being used.

That's what I can dream up, now imagine the professionals at CAA ICON sinking their minds into what's possible.
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All of this except make it an indoor stadium. 30,000 to 35,000 seater. We need to stop settling for garbage. Two of the warmest cities in the country (Vancouver and Toronto) have indoor stadiums, at least one of the full-on winter cities should too.
 
darwink said:
in a world with an extra $800 million bucks or so available for this purpose, 100 times yes. Are there many things I would put a higher priority on an extra $800 million? also yes.
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Ever heard of the Olympic games... Get the province and feds to kick in some money and you can get to 800M pretty quick.

What would be a higher priority? Economic uncertainty; hello what's better than hard to fill construction jobs (foreign worker recruitment) to prop up an economy, healthcare; solve that with 800M and you'd win a Nobel prize.

Spend the money on CSEC's real estate play and I'm sure Mr. Edwards would happily fund a campaign or two of yours through his many subsidiaries.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Ever heard of the Olympic games... Get the province and feds to kick in some money and you can get to 800M pretty quick.

What would be a higher priority? Economic uncertainty; hello what's better than hard to fill construction jobs (foreign worker recruitment) to prop up an economy, healthcare; solve that with 800M and you'd win a Nobel prize.

Spend the money on CSEC's real estate play and I'm sure Mr. Edwards would happily fund a campaign or two of yours through his many subsidiaries.
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Yup. The Olympics budget had $120 million for the event centre, and $200 million for the field house, and $60 million for McMahon of extra special money.

Alas. We really missed the boat on that one.
 
CSEC can't even build a hockey arena for half price without surrounding it dedicated turning lanes and above ground parking. I'd hesitate before allowing them to build anything in the West Village, or give them a nickel more than what was already committed.
 
MissingMiddle said:
CSEC can't even build a hockey arena for half price without surrounding it dedicated turning lanes and above ground parking. I'd hesitate before allowing them to build anything in the West Village, or give them a nickel more than what was already committed.
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Let's slow the West Village roll here - whether we should give money at all is still question, as far as I know. Did we commit any amount of money once the Victoria Park deal fell through?

If I am correct we owe exactly zero money to CSEC currently - there remains little logic to taxpayer involvement in this venture. Whatever their previous deal is an irrelevant artifact of history as it was never enacted (except a weird tax-payer funded parking lot upgrade for a third-party that somehow happened despite the actual arena deal not happening).

I agree that it seems unlikely CSEC can do anything tangible - west village sounds cool, but it's just a replay of 2012. Random spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks and maybe trick the counter-parties about their negotiation position if they are stupid. My guess is that as long as CSEC isn't liable for the costs they really don't care the outcome - west village, east village, Victoria park etc.

It's going to be curious to see how this is packaged for the public to consume - my guess is that there will be some sort of election-bait provincial contribution (i.e. your tax dollars via another, even less efficient layer of government) into west village on some basis that the province is required to clean the site up anyways, so might as well offer free money to CSEC.
 
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darwink said:
If we want an arena, and arenas except in very large metros don't pay for themselves, then there is very much logic to it.
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Then their business model is broken and it's time they fix it. Stop giving 80 million per year to players if you're not shoving a couple dozen million under the mattress each year until it's time to build a new facility to operate such business.
 
It has always struck me as extremely bizarre that professional sports have managed to convince society that their form of entertainment requires public subsidy for their buildings. Why don't movie theatres get the same consideration? Why not just retail stores in general? I suppose this goes back ages (literally, think of the Roman Colliseum) but some cities have wised up, unfortuantely many others still take the bait, and as a result, the game continues.
 
For me, it's simple: People think we live in a capitalist society, we don't. We live in corporate socialist society.

There is almost no industry that isn't touch by subsidization. At almost anytime, people throw their arms up about the different subsidies that go to different industries. "The airline industry gets so much money, we should stop subsidizing oil, think of the costs to give people in the suburbs city services." Granted some subsidiaries are worse than others, but there's nothing people hate more than government picking winners and losers.

Least government has a diversified investment portfolio.
 
MichaelS said:
It has always struck me as extremely bizarre that professional sports have managed to convince society that their form of entertainment requires public subsidy for their buildings. Why don't movie theatres get the same consideration? Why not just retail stores in general? I suppose this goes back ages (literally, think of the Roman Colliseum) but some cities have wised up, unfortuantely many others still take the bait, and as a result, the game continues.
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Like politicians, owners of professionial sports teams have brilliantly marketed themselves as defenders of "identity":
-i.e. the Flames are essential to Calgary's identity, so if you don't (finanancially) support the Flames, you don't support what makes Calgary special
-i.e. an "Event Centre" will attract cultural events which will overcome Calgary's reputation as being redneck
 
darwink said:
Yup. The Olympics budget had $120 million for the event centre, and $200 million for the field house, and $60 million for McMahon of extra special money.

Alas. We really missed the boat on that one.
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In return for spending hundreds of millions on operations (ex. security), which would deliver nothing beyond the lifespan of the event
 
DougB said:
-i.e. an "Event Centre" will attract cultural events which will overcome Calgary's reputation as being redneck
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Every time I hear a booster make this claim I really wish we had before and after data for Edmonton's arena to the degree this is true that new arenas generate more events. It always comes up as the whole "we need a new arena or we won't get good/big concerts" part of the pitch:
  • Does Edmonton actually attract more concerts than their old arena? How many more? 1 per month? 10 per month?
  • How does this compare to Calgary? Do we get fewer concerts? Which ones?
  • Which concerts do Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto get that Edmonton doesn't? Are the amount/quality of concerts more a function of market size or arena quality? It doesn't matter how shiny your arena is or how concert-capable the roof is - some cities markets are too small or out of the path of tours regardless.
 
CBBarnett said:
Does Edmonton actually attract more concerts than their old arena?
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Having lived in Edmonton at the time of the arena debate, it was never about more or better concerts. It was about a downtown arena versus a 'county fair' arena. The downtown arena won out, Katz got his money from the city and he's built Ice District around the arena. No one that I know gripes about the money the city spent; they're too distracted by the sterile cement gathering space and new glass towers.
 
Edmonton does get some concerts we don’t, but it seems to vary from year to year. Some years there’s not much difference.
It’s too bad the Saddledome roof design can’t support the new types of concert stages, as the age of the building isn’t an issue concert wise.
I’d almost be as much or more worried about hockey to be honest. I know not everybody is a hockey fan, but I remember people from Winnipeg, who had moved here back in the days when Winnipeg didn’t have an NHL team and that was one of the things they complained about. Their perception was that Winnipeg was a backwater town because of that.
Because we are in Canada and the NHL is the big leagues when it comes to sports, not having an NHL team does put your city in a different light.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world for Calgary but it still would be a negative.

I’m not happy with the situation involving CSEC and the arena, but I also don’t want to see Calgary lose a big league sports team and potentially all concerts. If we get to a point where repairing the current roof is too expensive.
 
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