Edmcowboy11 said:
What about basketball alberta?
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This is from a recent EJ article.

Paul Sir, executive director of the Alberta Basketball Association was part of the group proposing reuse of the site.
“I’m hoping they’ll listen because the dynamite’s not in the ground yet,” he said in an interview with Postmedia. “OEG is such a fantastic community contributor and so I know when this arrangement was struck OEG and the city came to this understanding because OEG rightfully and understandably felt like they needed to protect their interests for the long term. Now what we’re proposing will be in no way any kind of a threat to OEG’s business and the type of business that they’re in.”
 
TAS said:
Just as a follow-up to my previous posts here, I have also heard from Coun. Esslinger and Knack who say nothing has been decided.on Coliseum and indicate they are open still,.

As noted above, I also got a response from McKeen who said he would like to hear more from Basketball Alberta. I sent messages to Caterina, Paquette, Nickel and Iveson as well on this but did not hear back.

Given that it falls in Caterina's ward, I think, that is disappointing. I'm not sure why he's not championing this idea of repurposing or even what he is advocating for regarding the Coliseum.

It's been several years now this building has been closed and doesn't seem like any progress either way in terms of repurposing or taking it down.
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Caterina was on the Board of Directors for Northlands for ages (I imagine still is, provided Northlands even has a BoD now?) and he didn't seem to champion anything during that time either--if not the opposite, given how badly Northlands has been neutered by the City over the past decade or so--so truthfully his lack of reply surprises me very little.

FWIW, and I'm not a huge muni politicker, but I lived in Caterina's ward for over a decade. I don't recall hearing anything about him doing anything aside from that minor scandal where he hired his son to be his assistant on tax payer dime (don't even think that was against any rules really), and his failed bid for an MLA seat in the 2015 election. Incumbency cruise control probably accurately describes his last few years....
 
Caterina was one of the leaders of the pro-Municipal Airport side of airport debate, imediately after being elected to council for the first time. I remember asking him about his views on the Muni during the election, he never replied but started blowing his horn about it after getting elected. I am so glad that airport was shut down.
 
TAS said:
This is from a recent EJ article.

Paul Sir, executive director of the Alberta Basketball Association was part of the group proposing reuse of the site.
“I’m hoping they’ll listen because the dynamite’s not in the ground yet,” he said in an interview with Postmedia. “OEG is such a fantastic community contributor and so I know when this arrangement was struck OEG and the city came to this understanding because OEG rightfully and understandably felt like they needed to protect their interests for the long term. Now what we’re proposing will be in no way any kind of a threat to OEG’s business and the type of business that they’re in.”
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Paul is a fantastic guy and leader in our sport community. Here's hoping they can be included.
 
Who would I talk to about going into the old Coliseum with some of my dark sky photography gear, snapping some no-low light photography representing the building as a derelict, with the goal of writing an article on it's potential as a repurposed facility that contributes to the heritage and future of the city?


Look no further to the Pacific Coliseum as an excellent example of a venue that satisfies Vancouver's needs to b-level tickets that cannot afford to be put on display at GM Place....or whatever it is we're calling our arena now.

I'd really like to do that if anyone knows how to get it done and would like to partner on it.
 
I'm quite conflicted about the city's plan in its current form. Overall it's very... underwhelming, and the outright refusal to consider re-purposing the coliseum is simply baffling. I do like certain aspects of it though, such as expanding Borden Park, the two new LRT stations, and medium/high density TODs. Adaptive reuse of the coliseum could very well (considering the options I've seen) turn it into the centre-piece of a cool little urban district. Instead we've been presented with something little removed from a first-year planning project, and told its the only workable option. Give it a decent facelift and it'll be as good as new.
 
Hell I'd be happy if they just tore the roof off the Coliseum, and filled it with dirt and trees. Make a big post-apocalyptic art piece out of it!
But literally anything that keeps it is fine. Anything. There's a million and one options available, but there seems to be this desperation to "start from scratch". I don't see it as any different than re-purposing the old power station by the Walterdale, and there's plenty of energy behind that.

I am excited for the second station at 115 Ave. It's nice to have options, and for me I think it'd be the same distance from my house as the current Stadium station is.
 
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