[animatronic]

Look at the Stade de France ... which would be the main Stadium for the 2024 Paris bid. They can fit a athletics track - and hide it under additional seating. It works so well it hosted 1998 World cup final, 2003 IIAF World championships and soon the 2016 Euros. And with skydome under going renovations, it may not be so friendly to events that typically use it right now. The 2008 bid proposed down sizing the stadium and giving it to the Argos.

It almost makes sense to give the Olympics to a city that already has the required venues.

 

[Euphoria]

I think you may not appreciate the amount of waste on things like security and events-related costs that going along with the infrastructure (think $4-6B). Also, a lot of the Games jnfrastructure is irrelevant once the event is over - London is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convert their stadium, for example. As did Atlanta, and theirs didn't even last 20 years.

You are also placing too much stock in the revenue from sponsors and broadcasters - they make the bid numbers look good but in the end they always fall far short.

And the whole idea of government as stadium landlord has been tried - we already took a bath on the SkyDome. ACC was built without a penny of tax dollars and an nfl stadium should be too. The public return on sports infrastructure investment is pitifully low - there are far better bangs for the buck.

I'm not understanding. Are you saying we shouldn't host large scale events due to security costs? Security is required for the hosting of all large public events in 21st century western civilization. Lots of people spend lots of money at large public events (not events for elite cadres a la G8 Summit). I agree that costs won't entirely be covered through private dollars and we'll have to pony up a portion, but the billions in private dollars will go a long way. I too hope the stadium would be financed in whole or in part by investors. Whether city owned or in private hands, the stadium will have value and can be leased or sold. It won't be a white elephant. This city has an insatiable appetite for concerts and sports. We hear enough pleas for an NFL team and a second hockey franchise. The only salient complaint I've heard so far in terms of cost vs. benefit is with regard to the stadium. People seem to want everything else. I think many are willing to take a risk on the stadium. We really need to know what the COC and the city have in mind as a funding model before we can fairly assess the risks of hosting.

 

[animatronic]

I'm not understanding. Are you saying we shouldn't host large scale events due to security costs?

That is exactly what I'm saying. Security, the bid cost, the severance pay for executives, the fleets of vehicles, the gazebos in Huntsville, the penalties paid to crash construction schedules and a thousand other line items are a huge tax on any infrastructure that does get built.

I agree that costs won't entirely be covered through private dollars and we'll have to pony up a portion, but the billions in private dollars will go a long way.

You make it sound like couch change. The public will be on the hook for north of $10b.

I too hope the stadium would be financed in whole or in part by investors. Whether city owned or in private hands, the stadium will have value and can be leased or sold. It won't be a white elephant.

That's exactly what they said about the SkyDome and we sold it a few years after construction at a 400m loss. No private interest will pony up $1b for a track stadium.

This city has an insatiable appetite for concerts and sports. We hear enough pleas for an NFL team and a second hockey franchise.

The Bills, Argos, Marlies and the 2014-2015 Leafs have demonstrated that our sports appetite is easily sated. In any event we need more 2-5k and 10-20k venues, not 80-100k.

The only salient complaint I've heard so far in terms of cost vs. benefit is with regard to the stadium. People seem to want everything else. I think many are willing to take a risk on the stadium.

That Ipsos poll showed that only
9% of Canadians strongly support tax dollars to fund the Olympics. I don't think your assumption that the public will support funding a white elephant stadium is accurate.

We really need to know what the COC and the city have in mind as a funding model before we can fairly assess the risks of hosting.

the COC doesn't give a shit because they aren't on the hook for a single penny. The city's funding model will be to cough up for a bit of infrastructure and bleed the province and Feds dry. Only problem with that is our tax dollars fund all three levels so it's just a shell game. The Feds will also need to underwrite the whole thing so taxpayers are the only parties carrying any risk.

 

[T.E.C.II]

Again, for the fourteenth billion time, NO. IT. CAN'T. For an Olympics they have to put in a 400M track. That makes the stadium all-but-unusable afterwards for any other sport but track & field because the stands are too far from the action.

The Atlanta Braves converted Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field, taking it from an 85,000 seat stadium, to an 49,586 seat baseball stadium.

 

[animatronic]

The Atlanta Braves converted Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field, taking it from an 85,000 seat stadium, to an 49,586 seat baseball stadium.

You skipped the parts where the Olympic Committee paid for the conversion and that it's about to get demolished after less than 20 years as a baseball stadium.

 

[T.E.C.II]

I didn't "skip" anything. Just pointing out that it's possible to still use the stadium for something other than track and field. As to the fact the Braves are moving...so what? What does that have to do with anything?

 

[animatronic]

I didn't "skip" anything. Just pointing out that it's possible to still use the stadium for something other than track and field. As to the fact the Braves are moving...so what? What does that have to do with anything?

That mega stadiums are a waste of tax dollars. If private teams want to take on that risk then they can knock themselves out.

 

[GenerationW]

It won't be a white elephant. This city has an insatiable appetite for concerts and sports. We hear enough pleas for an NFL team and a second hockey franchise.

A second NHL team would not play at an outdoor stadium except for the occasional special event, there are no plans by the NFL to put a team in Toronto, and there aren't that many acts who could fill a 70,000+ seat venue.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

The Atlanta Braves converted Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field, taking it from an 85,000 seat stadium, to an 49,586 seat baseball stadium.

Yeah, the ugliest of all Olympic stadiums with absolutely terrible sightlines, because it was going to become a baseball park, which has subsequently been condemned twenty years later. I'm pretty sure Atlanta rues its Olympics disaster as much as Athens.

Look at the Stade de France ... which would be the main Stadium for the 2024 Paris bid. They can fit a athletics track - and hide it under additional seating. It works so well it hosted 1998 World cup final, 2003 IIAF World championships and soon the 2016 Euros. And with skydome under going renovations, it may not be so friendly to events that typically use it right now. The 2008 bid proposed down sizing the stadium and giving it to the Argos.

This is actually a very interesting example. Stade de France doesn't have a permanent tenant. It's too big for anything but national soccer and rugby games. The Paris soccer and rugby teams don't play there, because without 80,000 people in the place, it is patently obvious that the seats are way too far from the field and the temporary seats for the big ticket payers are crap aluminum bleachers. It's a very good track & field stadium that rarely gets used for track & field or anything else.

It's also in the middle of nowhere as Paris has the sense to not site a large stadium in the center of the city when you could have Trocadero and the Jardins de Luxembourg instead.

So -- Canadians don't watch World Cup track & field, ever. We don't have any need for an 80k stadium for anything, national sports-wise. We already have a publicly paid for baseball stadium that was a financial disaster. We have properly sized stadia for all the current local professional sports teams, and the only real (maybe) 'need' would be another ice hockey rink (although Quebec City will get the next team that can no longer bankrupt an American suburb). Tell me again about how this billion dollar stadium is (a) needed, (b) wanted, and (c) cost-effective?

 

[animatronic]

Yeah, the ugliest of all Olympic stadiums with absolutely terrible sightlines, because it was going to become a baseball park, which has subsequently been condemned twenty years later. I'm pretty sure Atlanta rues its Olympics disaster as much as Athens.



This is actually a very interesting example. Stade de France doesn't have a permanent tenant. It's too big for anything but national soccer and rugby games. The Paris soccer and rugby teams don't play there, because without 80,000 people in the place, it is patently obvious that the seats are way too far from the field and the temporary seats for the big ticket payers are crap aluminum bleachers. It's a very good track & field stadium that rarely gets used for track & field or anything else.

It's also in the middle of nowhere as Paris has the sense to not site a large stadium in the center of the city when you could have Trocadero and the Jardins de Luxembourg instead.

So -- Canadians don't watch World Cup track & field, ever. We don't have any need for an 80k stadium for anything, national sports-wise. We already have a publicly paid for baseball stadium that was a financial disaster. We have properly sized stadia for all the current local professional sports teams, and the only real (maybe) 'need' would be another ice hockey rink (although Quebec City will get the next team that can no longer bankrupt an American suburb). Tell me again about how this billion dollar stadium is (a) needed, (b) wanted, and (c) cost-effective?

A standard rule of thumb is that a stadium or arena needs about 200 event days per year to be profitable. There is no chance that any new outdoor stadium could meet that number.

 

[Euphoria]

Tax dollars fund a minority of the overall costs. See the budget breakdowns of recent bids. Not only that. I'd rather be in a city that doesn't shy away from hosting major sporting and other international events, not a penurious, small-minded one where locals are suspicious of dem foreign folk and bigwigs in suits. This is about aspiration and mindset as much as anything else. The city and its revenues will be bigger in part because it will be on the radar for hosting international conferences, locating the headquarters for multi-nationals, drawing investment. Basically, the costs are diluted in a bigger pond than what currently exists. But yes, you do have to believe that the city has that potential and can handle the risks. I won't dismantle arguments point by point, except to say again that the stadium won't be a white elephant. Yes, SkyDome was expensive, but it's been far from a white elephant. Its construction redefined the city and drew international interest. At the time there wasn't a retractable roof like it on the planet. It's seen a lot of use over the years and it basically opened up CityPlace, that stretch of Vancouver-style steel and glass that the cynics call a future St. James Town. The truth is, that massive brownfield area was derelict and depressing. Toronto could be very bleak back then. It's no coincidence that soon afterwards the King and Spadina area began to take off through the rezoning of the Planning Dept.'s 'Kings' plan. The city changed around the time of those World Series wins. I'll spare you the details about the Jays having the best fan attendance in the league, hosting the All Star Game, the subsequent explosion of film production work at that time. The city could make another leap with an Olympics in a glittering Portlands.

 

[rbt]

A standard rule of thumb is that a stadium or arena needs about 200 event days per year to be profitable. There is no chance that any new outdoor stadium could meet that number.

I'd like to see some creative solutions that don't end with a stadium of any kind. At basics, a stadium is an open center, 4 outer walls, and some kind of staircased seating. The open-center can be filled to something useful for the neighbourhood: a transit hub, mall/retail, multi-rink community center, library, housing at the outer edges, park on the new roof like Kowloon mall/station?

The trick would be finding a design where you basically halt construction of your community hub at a point, temporarily install seating, host the games, remove the seating, and resume construction on the community hub.

This may well be a ridiculous idea. However, after seeing what's been done with Union Station and Maple Leaf Gardens, I tend to think something pre-planned would be much easier and cheaper than those renovation projects. Heck, you could even have knockout points in the outer walls to drive a streetgrid through it after the games.

The stadium might be $2B BUT we might get $1.8B of useful buildings out of it. Tender the entire package up-front, with a gap for the games, to fix the price.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I won't dismantle arguments point by point, except to say again that the stadium won't be a white elephant.
... I'll spare you the details about the Jays having the best fan attendance in the league, hosting the All Star Game, the subsequent explosion of film production work at that time. The city could make another leap with an Olympics in a glittering Portlands.

Euph, you need to stop 'sparing the details', because without them your arguments are so full of hot air, they're about to pick up the house from 'UP.'

Am I reading your comment correctly? Did you just take the opportunity to conflate the opening of the SkyDome (1989) with the Two Kings policy of Barbara Hall

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/09/09/hume_how_barbara_hall_made_toronto_better.html

who was Mayor '94-'97 and made keeping King West from being demolished a priority, and the CityPlace project (first two buildings opened on Front in 2002-3)?

I walked down Yonge from the Duke of Kent to Summerhill and pub-crawled back once it became certain the celebration at Yonge/Dundas was going to be a nightmare. No one is more happy than me to see the Blue Jays doing something exciting this year. That doesn't mean that Ontario should have built that bloody SkyDome with taxpayers' dollars and sold it at a loss of hundreds of millions. An Olympics will be the SkyDome, except the public is hosed for 10x as much... conservatively.

ETA: I was so piqued about your other comments I forgot to add: HAHAHAHAHA... DID YOU JUST SAY OUR FILM INDUSTRY IS BECAUSE OF THE SKYDOME???!!!???

So... there's that.

 

[animatronic]

Tax dollars fund a minority of the overall costs. See the budget breakdowns of recent bids.

The bid budgets are wildly speculative and generally 200-300% underpriced.

Not only that. I'd rather be in a city that doesn't shy away from hosting major sporting and other international events, not a penurious, small-minded one where locals are suspicious of dem foreign folk and bigwigs in suits. This is about aspiration and mindset as much as anything else.

Then have I got an idea for you... actually never mind. It's more of a Shelbyville idea.

The city and its revenues will be bigger in part because it will be on the radar for hosting international conferences, locating the headquarters for multi-nationals, drawing investment. Basically, the costs are diluted in a bigger pond than what currently exists.

Nope. Repeated studies have shown no impact post-Games. Even Barcelona - supposedly an Olympic success story - had the same tourism growth rate as the Olympic-less Madrid.

But yes, you do have to believe that the city has that potential and can handle the risks.

Of course we could do it. Doesn't mean we should

I won't dismantle arguments point by point, except to say again that the stadium won't be a white elephant. Yes, SkyDome was expensive, but it's been far from a white elephant. Its construction redefined the city and drew international interest. At the time there wasn't a retractable roof like it on the planet. It's seen a lot of use over the years and it basically opened up CityPlace, that stretch of Vancouver-style steel and glass that the cynics call a future St. James Town. The truth is, that massive brownfield area was derelict and depressing. Toronto could be very bleak back then. It's no coincidence that soon afterwards the King and Spadina area began to take off through the rezoning of the Planning Dept.'s 'Kings' plan. The city changed around the time of those World Series wins. I'll spare you the details about the Jays having the best fan attendance in the league, hosting the All Star Game, the subsequent explosion of film production work at that time. The city could make another leap with an Olympics in a glittering Portlands.

While stories about the Jays of the 80s would no doubt be entertaining, some of us were actually there. Let's focus on more WAMCO and less white elephants.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

While stories about the Jays of the 80s would no doubt be entertaining, some of us were actually there. Let's focus on more WAMCO and less white elephants.

Totally off-topic: absolutely unbelievable that TDBEM is actually significantly better than WAMCO. Way too much fun!