BMO Centre Expansion | 25m | 5s | CMLC

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Urb said:
Great article. One counterpoint - if the City timed this project very will. If they tried to build this today, it would cost ~30-40% more.
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Very disappointed that the Olympics weren't mentioned in this article. BMO was originally an Olympics project, as was the event centre and the field house as then conceived.
 
MichaelS said:
www.sprawlcalgary.com

The real costs of Calgary’s new BMO Centre | The Sprawl

City hall went big—and is feeling the pinch.
www.sprawlcalgary.com www.sprawlcalgary.com

A good overview of the financing of this, as well as the other big 3 capital projects (Arena, Arts Common, Field House).
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Interesting article. Certainly I dont think it makes any sense to compare an Event Centre or BMO, to community rec facilities or the green line. The first 2, while having local benefit, are economic drivers in that they bring the outside to Calgary. Those short term lifts that fill hotels, restaurants, ect... Community rec facilities, parks, affordable housing public transit ect are all annual operational losses that you take on to provide ease and quality of life to your citizens...but they dont directly help you economically, it's more of a wholistic vision that hopefully drives people to move here . If all we ever did was invest in those, the city would be "boring", but operate well. If it was the inverse, we'd be a tourist mecca but a horseshit place to live. You need to do both.

Very disappointed that the Olympics weren't mentioned in this article. BMO was originally an Olympics project, as was the event centre and the field house as then conceived.
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True. I'll go to the grave that the Olympics were a huge missed opportunity for the city, given what we already have in play to use, the external investment that we'll never see now. Just a calamity in how it was rolled out
 
darwink said:
Very disappointed that the Olympics weren't mentioned in this article. BMO was originally an Olympics project, as was the event centre.
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The reasons for why these projects are a good idea always shift with the political discussion on the time - the important thing is that the project is always the solution!

Tothewest said:
Interesting article. Certainly I dont think it makes any sense to compare an Event Centre or BMO, to community rec facilities or the green line. The first 2, while having local benefit, are economic drivers in that they bring the outside to Calgary. Those short term lifts that fill hotels, restaurants, ect... Community rec facilities, parks, affordable housing public transit ect are all annual operational losses that you take on to provide ease and quality of life to your citizens...but they dont directly help you economically, it's more of a wholistic vision that hopefully drives people to move here . If all we ever did was invest in those, the city would be "boring", but operate well. If it was the inverse, we'd be a tourist mecca but a horseshit place to live. You need to do both.
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It only makes sense to compare in that at any given time we can only afford to build so much stuff of this scale - by choosing to prioritize one type of thing, you are choosing to not invest in another (or at least to delay investment).

I agree you probably want to do both types of facilities - but I think you are over-emphasizing the role these types of facilities have as economic drivers in most cases. That is not a proven fact that spending on these facilities is some immutable positive economic driver compared to anything else we could spend money on . There's a long history of overselling the benefits of these types of building (e.g. https://www.governing.com/archive/col-convention-center-promised-benefits-rarely-materialize.html )

Similarly, spending on "operational losses" like public transit and parks is not just a big black hole sucking money away from the productive economy, these types of investments play a huge role in keeping the city attractive, connecting people with jobs (transit), and just an overall good place to live - which is the goal.

For the BMO Centre (and event centre) - I have no doubt that this is a large, attractive and high-quality facility (the pictures look great!). Now that it's open - time to see the results we have paid up-front for that have been used to justify such a substantial public investment into the area. I am looking for is what boosters have been claiming for decades:
  • Actual hotels developed in immediate area - I feel we have had 5 - 10 announcements over the past decade but nothing has materialized
  • Measurable boost in tourism and conference traffic and spending
  • Spur actual redevelopment of Victoria Park
  • Stampede Park as year-round destination
50 years ago it didn't work when we created the first generation of all these event facilities, but perhaps the city is big and dynamic enough that it'll work this time. I am an event centre/conference centre skeptic on their net benefits in return for such a significant public subsidy, but would love to be proven wrong this time around. The doors are now open so time to see the results in the coming years, let's prove this skeptic wrong!
 
CBBarnett said:
The reasons for why these projects are a good idea always shift with the political discussion on the time - the important thing is that the project is always the solution!
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The important part re:Olympics would be accessing extra special money which is very rare. Alas! The sales effort around that was a dogs breakfast.
 
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I've read that Populous dropped the scope of this project when they assessed the cost, and dropped 200 square feet of space, which is how we ended up with the plaza. This project could have looked drastically different with olympics money.
 
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