Scotia Place | 36.85m | 11s | CSEC | HOK

Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 103 67.3%

  • No

    Votes: 40 26.1%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 10 6.5%
  • Total voters
    153
maestro said:
Developer incentives is what spurred development around professional sports facilities around North America. Most of it would not have developed strictly on the sports facility's draw which would make the hundreds of millions invested in such a facility not as sound.
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Whatever the catalysts were, development happened in those markets. The common denominator was a sports/event facility of some kind. Without that draw, development would probably have not happened at least not on the scale it did. I cited some examples of success in an earlier post.
There are reasons why the Saddledome did not spur development around it once those properties north of it became available. I am guessing that part of the reason that the Saddledome is contained inside the Stampede grounds. The Stampede board had their own plans to extend the grounds north and create their own year round 'entertainment district' which were shared about 10 years ago. That plan was supposed to attract residential development in East Victoria Park. THEN, the plan promptly went on hold with the many 'fits and starts' in our economy. THEN CMLC came along and THEN the talk about a new arena. We had so many fingers in the pie ... the city, CMLC, CSEC and the Calgary Stampede ... but no central vision or ownership that developers could be confident with and buy into. Ideally that was the role CMLC was supposed to play but was pushed out of the way. I doubt whether the same conditions existed in those other markets hence our current state of flux.
That is my take for what it is worth 🙂
 
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darwink said:
Sports makes a lot of money for the paper.

And without CSEC feeding them good arguments why would we expect the columnists to come up with them?

Like this is CSEC thinking it is winning. Getting the Herald to write this many pieces. I don't know what CSEC is thinking.
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Because isn't that exactly what being a journalist is? And, if you can't come up with good arguments, state that fact?
 
MichaelS said:
Good point. Wish more people realized that, but unfortunately so many people take those columns as fact.
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Let the reader beware. Columnists generally fall under the category of ''Opinion". Both the Calgary Herald and The Globe & Mail as examples, title their columnists as such. However, they should be using facts to support whatever opinion they are writing about. The paper's Editorial Board is supposed to govern this.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
Let the reader beware. Columnists generally fall under the category of ''Opinion". Both the Calgary Herald and The Globe & Mail as examples, title their columnists as such. However, they should be using facts to support whatever opinion they are writing about. The paper's Editorial Board is supposed to govern this.
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The Herald no longer has an editorial board.
 
Duck Lightning said:
The city voted 15-0 to go back to the negotiating table. This time it sounds like they are going to look for interested 3rd party investors to help cover the cost of the project. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-arena-deal-event-centre-jyoti-gondek-flames-1.6312864
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Actually, the 3rd party is who is going to re-engage CSEC. Obviously, the city does not want to do this directly ... because of current friction between the two parties? I guess the 3rd party is going to play the role of arbiter.
City administration has been tasked to find out if there are other interested partners beyond CSEC.... good luck with that!
Most disturbing to me is that one of the options they are seriously looking at is re-furbishing the Saddledome ... what????... wasn't that thoroughly assessed years ago and rejected?
 
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JonnyCanuck said:
thoroughly assessed
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I would say it was lightly assessed at best. I think it was ruled out early due to the roof issue.

We never did see a report like the Edmonton full retrofit report made public. There is a hearsay number of what a roof retrofit would cost, but I don't remember seeing it anywhere but in the newspaper.

The Saddledome Foundation might have it, but until recently the connection between the foundation and Council was Ray Jones (from 2008-current (he was appointed as a citizen, not a councillor)
 
If they're looking for other interested parties, they should look to e-sports (Overactive Media maybe?). It might mean design changes, but would diversify the use of the building. The goal needs to be for the event centre to host events as many days as possible.
 
It's interesting that the only publicly-owned NHL arenas are in Alberta and in the American South and Midwest - i.e. the most conservative, so-called "small government", "pro-business" regions of their respective countries. Everywhere else, the arenas are privately owned (with a couple exceptions in Seattle and Anaheim).

If there's a new deal to be had, I would like the City of Calgary to take an opportunity to get out of the pro sports business.
 
Silence&Motion said:
It's interesting that the only publicly-owned NHL arenas are in Alberta and in the American South and Midwest - i.e. the most conservative, so-called "small government", "pro-business" regions of their respective countries. Everywhere else, the arenas are privately owned (with a couple exceptions in Seattle and Anaheim).

If there's a new deal to be had, I would like the City of Calgary to take an opportunity to get out of the pro sports business.
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Plus San Jose. Also important not to conflate privately owned with privately financed or privately funded or with the previous supported by only private revenues.

For example, Seattle's is owned by the City of Seattle. But recent renovations were privately financed. But the deal included surrendering a huge amount of existing parking revenue to the arena lessee, minus the revenue that the would have continued to make with only the WNBA team as a tenant. The deal also has the private operator receiving the equivalent of tax increment financing (including sales taxes, tourism taxes, property taxes) for the arena and surrounding area which they call 'upside tax revenues'. For 55 years. The arena was also designated a historic landmark, triggering favourable tax treatment by other levels of government, and allowing grants. The arena operator also got rights over Seattle Centre sponsorships. (This would be like if the Flames signed a pepsi exclusive, and then the arena deal forced the stampede to also serve pepsi instead of coke.)

So yeah - it isn't nearly as simple as it seems. Every arena deal has some sort of complicated arrangement like this. Because even in Seattle, concerts and NHL aren't really enough to pay for a facility like that.
 
The turning over of tax uplift to the private financier is interesting. The sales pitch is it will generate so much, so governments should do it, but evidence is not as strong as suggested. This puts the risk and reward on the private finances. 55 years seems like a lot though, but still, interesting angle.
 
MichaelS said:
The turning over of tax uplift to the private financier is interesting. The sales pitch is it will generate so much, so governments should do it, but evidence is not as strong as suggested. This puts the risk and reward on the private finances. 55 years seems like a lot though, but still, interesting angle.
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Not the real point - whether there is risk or not there is value transfer, and every deal has something. Air Canada Centre? What turned into MLSE purchase terms' from Canada Post for the land was a series of payments over 20 years. The City of Toronto gave quite a bit of density bonusing to MLSE for the land they bought in the end, what were considered obscene 40 story towers! So, was it entirely private?
 
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