Avenuer said:
Wouldn't the renovation cost to repurpose it to something other than an arena be much, much more than $25 million? That would only be feasible if a developer approached the City to purchase it and bear all of the reno costs.
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of course the renovation cost would be more than 25 million... but you would end up with 400,000 sf of space being put to good use and not just another vacant piece of land.

if edmonton is short on anything, it's certainly not vacant pieces of land.

you need your comparison to be the construction cost of 400,000 sf of enclosed space from scratch, not the cost of demolition.
 
Avenuer said:
Wouldn't the renovation cost to repurpose it to something other than an arena be much, much more than $25 million? That would only be feasible if a developer approached the City to purchase it and bear all of the reno costs.
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Reminder: at least one developer DID approach the city to purchase it (and presumably bear all the reno costs), and were told no:

Agora Borealis | ?m | 7s | Gardner Architecture

A new proposal for the Coliseum has been submitted to the city, called Agora Borealis. It's big enough it deserves its own thread I think. The Agora An open space serving as an assembly area and a place for commercial, civic, social, and religious activities. The Village The...
edmonton.skyrisecities.com edmonton.skyrisecities.com
 
^

there was more than one other developer interested also interested. in order to submit however, you had to agree to give all intellectual property rights relating to your submission to the city. which means that no submission could include any proprietary information or material. which pretty much ensured they weren't going to get much of quality. a full design submission can easily cost upwards of 250k for which it's reasonable to assume you own what you paid for (and/or your consultants still own what they designed). without that it's not surprising they didn't get much in terms of real imagination. our submission was a shadow of what it would otherwise have been and was basically reduced to simple text as a result (even though we had some really spectacular images). proponents were also specifically precluded from including the coliseum and even though not everyone abided by that (including us) it was an automatic disqualification.
 
^^^^ likewise with our submission -- somehow, some way, internally, the City thinks it has all the right answers when in reality and in fact it has none. City Planners feel like they have a say-so that goes w-a-a-a-a-y beyond their pay grade and w-a-a-a-a-y beyond their skill set and the politicos don't even raise an eyebrow. Until this changes -- and I mean significantly -- Edmonton will be under the thumb of mediocrity, eschewing brilliant ideas. And its not that the general public will care or even notice, happy with a City of Planters and Benches, Planters and Benches, Planters and Benches. I'm going to sit back now and let my heart rate drop back to the nineties and my blood pressure recede to 180 over 120.
 
I hope when I become a planner I can start a change for the better 🙃
 
Daveography said:
@archited While I generally support the effort, I wouldn't give too much credit to Mandel given that he's at least partially responsible for the deal that tied the City's hands on how the Coliseum could be repurposed.
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i think it was quite a bit less restrictive until the sponsorship agreement was renegotiated by the current council and that's when it when it went from no competing uses to no uses at all.
 
Another "administration report"??? -- again, the City should go OUTSIDE OF THE ADMINISTRATION to get real value. The engineer who last led this effort admitted to me that they don't have the resources to properly evaluate "possibilities". The possibilities that were last reviewed were tainted by a skew towards hockey uses (blinders on!). Iveson has no idea what he is talking about. Ken, you and I should talk about joining Mandel's group, adding a little oomph to the effort.
 
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