Flames/Stampeders $890 million Complex: Watch Here

[blueandgoldguy]

I'm not sure why some people are against public funding for these places tho, Like the star trek guy said... creates jobs, brings in lots of money for the economy. That's honestly why i never understood those who had an issue with IGF being publically  funded. Man, if people actually stepped back and look at some of the crap our tax dollars goes too,  I don't think they would be complaining about sports teams getting funding either. 

 

Pro Sports teams gives your city an identity... Man, look at the JETS, they left and a small part, a large part even of this cities identity left with them.... They were brought back and a part of our identity returned.

 

Sports is huge, does more good than harm thats for sure. If i was in charge, I'd  fund every damn arena and stadium proposal possible with tax payers money. 

 

You have to factor in the opportunity cost of providing all the taxpayer funds for a project like this.  Why subsidize a stadium/arena complex for the benefit of crappy, minimum wage part-time jobs when you could just as easily subsidize some other corporate interest that would provide full-time decent paying jobs...or deal with pressing infrastructure needs with that money instead.  Those construction jobs are nothing more than temporary and are always the go-to response from proprietors of such projects and the the die-hard sports fans who parrot this nonsense.

 

A sports team is but a small part of a city's identity.  If it is all you have, that is pretty sad.  When the Jets left, live went on as usual and the city did not suffer some personal identity crisis nor did it dry up.  Stadium and arena funding in smaller cities are pretty much a necessity to allow for financial viability but within reason.  No one wants to see a city that is encumbered by such a financial obligation as to cut essential municipal services as has been done in Cincinatti and Glendale.

I watched like 10 minutes of that video b4 i got bored as hell but the one thing, is that ken king? the one thing he kept saying over and over and over and over is... a PUBLIC fieldhouse... to be used 365 days a year. Pretty evident he was letting it be known that this is being built with the PUBLIC in mind... Yup, it's CFL stadium and a hockey arena but... it's mainly gonna be used as a Public facility...

 

Lets just break something down really quick.. Stamps play 9 home games  a year... Flames play 41 or 42 i think... Lets include playoffs and add, let's just say a nice easy round rumber..20 more dates in total....

 

51 + 20 = 71. For the remaining damn near 300 days of the year.. it's a public facility. Thought mentioning Public facility over and over was smart. 

 

Good ol' Ken King.  Trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Calgarians and the city council.  I loved how king and those renders emphasized that this is a EVENT CENTRE and a FIELDHOUSE as if this project is being primarily built for the public first and foremost. haha.  In reality the arena will be a professional sports facility for the Flames, the Hitman (yeah, they are amateur but you still pay to see them), and the Roughnecks.  Then you add another 100-120 events per year, factor in off days for maintenance, concert set-up and takedown, creating and melting ice and there might be 50 or so days available for public use..of course almost all those would be available at a steep rental price.  There might be a few days that the Flames organization makes the building available to the public for no charge like a fan appreciation day but those will be few and far between.  Making money is the primary reason for the arena while public use will be given little thought.

 

I also love how King piggybacks the idea of a domed stadium onto the plans of fieldhouse.  Since the City had discussed funding a $200 million indoor facility it basically reduces by 50% the estimated amount it would cost for a 30,000 seat domed stadium.  The problem for the city though, besides the outrageous costs, is that a shared facility with pro sports teams greatly reduces the amount of time the public has access to the facility.  Between the Stamps games and practices, pro soccer team games and practice and a few concerts, the facility will probably lose 80-100 days of public use whereas a spending that $200 million on a standalone facility for the public guarantees them 365 days a year of open public access.

 

Fortunately, Calgarians and the city council will see right through King's attempts as selling this as a primary public event centre.  They will also be expecting a substantially larger contribution from private interests than the proposed funding model suggests.

 

 

200 Million plus the city cleaning up the land? Ouch... Hope it happens but.. I'm not sure it's much more than a dream right now. I will say this tho, Before IGF was eventually built and even the new Mosaic and for that matter THF... there were years upon years of talk and more talk and more talk and designs and all sorts of stuff... This is just step 1. In 5 or 6 years, maybe they actually put shovels in the ground.

They might have to wait that long to get Nenshi voted out of power and get someone "more favourable to the cause" voted in......

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames/flames-reveal-details-of-900m-downtown-arena-stadium-plan

So what is a 240 mill Community Revitalization Levy? Sounds like a tax.

 

Pretty much.  It will be a loan from the government.  These CRFs are far from a guarantee too.  So basically, the Flames are asking the government to subsidize half this project...and probably pay for the entire clean-up of the site.  Won't happen.

 

This is probably the first of a series of proposals we will be seeing in the coming years.  I think it will be 8-10 years before anything is actually built.  Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a long and bumpy ride.

[Tracker]

A thought: if public money is going into something like this, why not have that money become an investment with the principal owners having an option to buy the government share for market value? If the ownership is manging well the operation ought to become profitable, but there ought not to be sweeheart exhorbitant "management fees" that Shenkadow et al got with the old NHL Jets.

[JuranBoldenRules]

A thought: if public money is going into something like this, why not have that money become an investment with the principal owners having an option to buy the government share for market value? If the ownership is manging well the operation ought to become profitable, but there ought not to be sweeheart exhorbitant "management fees" that Shenkadow et al got with the old NHL Jets.

 

Because then they'll move the team to Albuquerque.

 

The whole model of pro sports on this continent right now is based on teams owning/operating their own facilities and controlling all the "revenue streams," whether they paid for that facility or not.  It's absolutely gotten out of hand in many cities and it's not logical in any sense.  Miami might be the best recent example with the baseball stadium.

[The Unknown Poster]

The people against any public money going to sports facilities are the cranky pot hole Brigade. They think if the money isn't spent on sports it will be spent to fill the holes on their street.

Lots of people against MTSC too which paid back its public investment years early.

Good luck to Calgary. Gonna be a hard sell.

[Guest]

Wouldn't the Currie Barracks be a better location for the complex ?

[17to85]

Wouldn't the Currie Barracks be a better location for the complex ?

Maybe if the ctrain stopped there

[blueandgoldguy]

The people against any public money going to sports facilities are the cranky pot hole Brigade. They think if the money isn't spent on sports it will be spent to fill the holes on their street.

Lots of people against MTSC too which paid back its public investment years early.

Good luck to Calgary. Gonna be a hard sell.

MTS Centre is not at all a comparable funding model to the Calgary proposal.  

 

90 Million funding - True North

44 million - 3 levels of government

 

Calgary proposal calls for the majority to be funded by the gov't and they haven't even factored in the remediation costs.  World of difference between $44 million and $690 million.

[iso_55]

@ISO........thanks. fewer complaints about the government with them spreading the wealth.

Anytime.

[iso_55]

 

The people against any public money going to sports facilities are the cranky pot hole Brigade. They think if the money isn't spent on sports it will be spent to fill the holes on their street.

Lots of people against MTSC too which paid back its public investment years early.

Good luck to Calgary. Gonna be a hard sell.

MTS Centre is not at all a comparable funding model to the Calgary proposal.  

 

90 Million funding - True North

44 million - 3 levels of government

 

Calgary proposal calls for the majority to be funded by the gov't and they haven't even factored in the remediation costs.  World of difference between $44 million and $690 million.

 

Nope, juuuust a bit outside regarding cost of cleanup.  Between $50 million & $300 million according to Flames Ken King. Interesting how the Prov of AB & The City of Calgary handled the creosote contamination over the years. The Prov is responsible for the cleanup unless the City moves the dirt first. Then they have to pay the entire cost of the cleanup so the site has sat empty with nothing being done for half a century. Meanwhile in 2013, the massive flood sent creosote everywhere. The Provincial & civic politicians are total asshats & should be ashamed. Now that Calgarians know the story you can bet they'll want to get the site cleaned up. And here's the kicker... The company that contaminated the site was allowed to walk away with no liability for clean up by AB Environment leaving taxpayers on the hook for the cost of remediation which King says is unprecedented just about anywhere. But that was our wuvable Towies & why after 44 years they finally got turfed even by the NDP.

[bearpants]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet...

 

 

this obviously doesn't apply to all situations... but the point is there...

[Logan007]

I love John Oliver.  That was quite eye opening.  I can't believe people just bend over to that kind of crap when you've got a billionaire owning a team.  I thought at least some profit would go back to the city in the US.  Wow...that's just insane.

[iso_55]

The City of Calgary will own  the facilities if the project is built.

[TBURGESS]

The City of Calgary will own  the facilities if the project is built.

AKA passing the maintenance costs on to the government.

[KptKrunch]

For those who don't know or live in Calgary - that price is no where near what will need to be paid given the location. It's not just the cleanup - it's the infrastructure. Traffic is crazy there now, when that goes up ,and there's a Flames home game, and it's snowing / icy out - the arena won't be full until the third period. 

 

If Calgary was smart they'd build it out somewhere around the ring road. Cheaper land and easier to get to. Here in Edmonton they had to an extension to our LRT to get it to the new arena site. It's going to be state of the art that place and I see it every week - sweet

[iso_55]

With the C Train it's still easier to get to than somewhere far & gone on Stony Trail. I'd say at least twenty thousand fans use the C Train to go to McMahon Stadium for Stamps games so we really don't know how this complex will impact traffic although I agree with you traffic is nuts there. With this complex it's pretty clear that the Powers That Be don't want Calgarians like me using our cars. 

[The Unknown Poster]

I understand MTSC was a much cheaper funding model but the point is that, assuming the public investment doesnt get out of hand, I see no problem with the government investing in these projects.

 

Also, when the Jets left town, Winnipeg was essentially a black hole.  Not saying the Jets leaving caused it but the 90's sucked in Winnipeg.  The Jets left because there was no building and no owner.

 

Realistically, just a quick glance at the Calgary proposal, I think the Flames should be paying a lot more.  They have a billionaire owner.  And its not just the sports buildings, but the fact that this will be a residential and commercial development.  I presume the Flames' owners will be the developers.  They stand to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in profit over the years.  I think the government can invest but private development should be the main contributor to their own developments.

[Jesse]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet...

 

 

this obviously doesn't apply to all situations... but the point is there...

 

That was pretty hilarious...

[Noeller]

They're definitely trying to promote C-Train use with this proposal, and I'm totally cool with that. I love taking the train to the 'Dome or McMahon, 'cause parking is obscenely priced everywhere, and the train is quick and direct. Coming from the north, we usually park at the zoo, and then take the train wherever. 

[17to85]

With the C Train it's still easier to get to than somewhere far & gone on Stony Trail. I'd say at least twenty thousand fans use the C Train to go to McMahon Stadium for Stamps games so we really don't know how this complex will impact traffic although I agree with you traffic is nuts there. With this complex it's pretty clear that the Powers That Be don't want Calgarians like me using our cars. 

They would obviously be doing a lot of changes to the traffic flow there. To be honest I don't think it'd be all that much worse than where Mcmahon is now for traffic. There's some ****** up places down there but it all seems to be changing anyway because they know it's ****** up. 

[bustamente]

So if this facility is built in 5-6 years who thinks that the price tag will be 890 million dollar. 

[iso_55]

With the C Train it's still easier to get to than somewhere far & gone on Stony Trail. I'd say at least twenty thousand fans use the C Train to go to McMahon Stadium for Stamps games so we really don't know how this complex will impact traffic although I agree with you traffic is nuts there. With this complex it's pretty clear that the Powers That Be don't want Calgarians like me using our cars.

They would obviously be doing a lot of changes to the traffic flow there. To be honest I don't think it'd be all that much worse than where Mcmahon is now for traffic. There's some ****** up places down there but it all seems to be changing anyway because they know it's ****** up.

******* eh!

[iso_55]

Getting over the Bow River north & southbound on Crowchild Trail is bad enough weekdays. It starts backing up in the morning by the U of C southbound until 9 or 9;30 am & northbound at 3 pm.

[Geebrr]

Can't see this project happening within the next 10 years.

[Geebrr]

So if this facility is built in 5-6 years who thinks that the price tag will be 890 million dollar.

No chance.

[bearpants]

 

 

With the C Train it's still easier to get to than somewhere far & gone on Stony Trail. I'd say at least twenty thousand fans use the C Train to go to McMahon Stadium for Stamps games so we really don't know how this complex will impact traffic although I agree with you traffic is nuts there. With this complex it's pretty clear that the Powers That Be don't want Calgarians like me using our cars.

They would obviously be doing a lot of changes to the traffic flow there. To be honest I don't think it'd be all that much worse than where Mcmahon is now for traffic. There's some ****** up places down there but it all seems to be changing anyway because they know it's ****** up.

 

******* eh!

 

 

**** **** balls ass ***** ***** **** .... just testing to see what gets past the filter... that's what we're all doing, right?

 

EDIT: only 2 of my 7 words made it