Calgary Event Centre | 36.85m | 11s | CSEC | HOK

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
at least the field house study is funded and underway. Hopefully it can cement a scope, and the project can start building a funding stack.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
Gotta love how a city of 130,000 in New Zealand with a relatively amazing climate can get an indoor rugby stadium like that, yet we can't even get a field house... a city thirteen times the size.
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haltcatchfire said:
But think about all the roads and interchanges we have that they don't. Priorities.
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Well - higher taxes and functioning higher orders of government (regional and national) help a lot in New Zealand's case. So does being a more concentrated population - cities and their needs have far more political weight - and having smaller infrastructure requirements across the board with fewer harsh climate and sparsity penalties.

A fun exercise to see why we struggle to pay for other infrastructure compared to other places sometimes:
  • 94,000km of roads / 5 million people (New Zealand) = 53 people / km road
  • 1,100,000km of roads / 38 million (Canada) = 34 people / km road
  • 181,000km of roads /4.5 million (Alberta) = 25 people / km road
Calgary could easily afford almost anything if we taxed as high as other places (or at least had local authorities having better ability to access the funds without provincial interference) and accepted lower service levels for cars city, province and nationwide. Throw in some better land use planning and an all out effort to improve our infrastructure utilization rates through general density increases and we are all set for many diamond plated stadiums!
 
They definitely need to put tolls into Calgary from neighboring cities but I don't think that would ever be possible with the current provincial government.
 
I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but this new centre will be amazing for people with accessibility issues. I have a friend who isn't able to use stairs, and when she went to a concert at the Saddledome a few years back, she had to be carried to the entrance because there literally isn't any entrance that has a ramp instead of stairs. The interior was pretty bad as well.

On another note, a while back I made an album comparing key parts of Edmonton's downtown from 2009-2019ish (basically pre and post Rogers Place). I wonder if this new event centre will encourage similar development? I've only been to the Saddledome once, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on how much economic investment this new centre would actually encourage compared to what's currently there.
 
CplKlinger said:
I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but this new centre will be amazing for people with accessibility issues. I have a friend who isn't able to use stairs, and when she went to a concert at the Saddledome a few years back, she had to be carried to the entrance because there literally isn't any entrance that has a ramp instead of stairs. The interior was pretty bad as well.

On another note, a while back I made an album comparing key parts of Edmonton's downtown from 2009-2019ish (basically pre and post Rogers Place). I wonder if this new event centre will encourage similar development? I've only been to the Saddledome once, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on how much economic investment this new centre would actually encourage compared to what's currently there.
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What are you talking about. As bad as the saddledome is, it is wheelchair accessible. There are ramps to all entrances. All of the accessible seating is on the main level too. I go with my friend who’s in a wheelchair to games all the time. No issues for him
 
Golfing guy said:
What are you talking about. As bad as the saddledome is, it is wheelchair accessible. There are ramps to all entrances. All of the accessible seating is on the main level too. I go with my friend who’s in a wheelchair to games all the time. No issues for him
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Huh, that's good to know, thanks for responding. She was adamant that there weren't any ramps, and now I'm honestly not sure why she thinks that.
 
CplKlinger said:
I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but this new centre will be amazing for people with accessibility issues. I have a friend who isn't able to use stairs, and when she went to a concert at the Saddledome a few years back, she had to be carried to the entrance because there literally isn't any entrance that has a ramp instead of stairs. The interior was pretty bad as well.

On another note, a while back I made an album comparing key parts of Edmonton's downtown from 2009-2019ish (basically pre and post Rogers Place). I wonder if this new event centre will encourage similar development? I've only been to the Saddledome once, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on how much economic investment this new centre would actually encourage compared to what's currently there.
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As far as i'm aware there is only one ramp on the NE side which you can then use to access the other entrances on the concourse level. I imagine it's a pain in the ass if you show up at the wrong entrance and have to go around to the NE so it could very well be that that staff carried your friend up the stairs.

Calgary's arena project isn't really looking to spur the same type of development as Edmonton's. The focus is mainly on redeveloping Victoria Park and the Stampede Grounds.
 
Although I'm sure the arena will encourage some development. The problem in Calgary is that there are so many other areas competing for investment that it's unlikely the area surrounding the arena will be built up at a rate any faster than other places. I'd expect slow but steady development in the adjacent neighborhoods rather than a spike in construction directly tied to the event center.
 
The area has already been seeing heavy development for a decade. It's gone from an uninterrupted ocean of 12 city blocks of surface parking, now there are 18 residential towers home to over 5,000 people within 5 blocks of the new arena. We don't really need the small district development like the Ice District. The Arena and Convention Centre will be kitty corner to each other, thousands of residential units proposed as part of the CMLC master plan, a subway station on the green line connected to the Arena, and a new hotel at the convention centre which isn't too far off.
 
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