[News] New Arena - Plan B - Victoria Park

[GullFoss]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...iver-1.4086136

lol - wtf. "Calgary's mayor says the time has finally come to clean up the source of the decades-old waste next to the Bow River."

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...iver-1.4086136

lol - wtf. "Calgary's mayor says the time has finally come to clean up the source of the decades-old waste next to the Bow River."

Not sure what you are WTFing about. The city has wanted that cleaned up for a long time now. That requirement exists entirely independent of whether or not CalgaryNext is a good or bad idea.

The issue is that the city and province are in a bit of a pissing match over the clean-up. It is currently the province's problem to clean it up, but they can't easily go after the company that caused the mess and seem content to just sit around and hope the city finally gets pissed off enough to do the work itself so it can develop what should be prime land. So both sides do nothing, hoping the other will blink.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

McMahon is now considered the worst outdoor stadium in the country so any new outdoor stadium is going to look fantastic in comparison. I liked the Flames vision of an indoor stadium because this country really only has two indoor stadiums (BC Place and Rogers Center). Most of the Grey Cups in the past few decades have been held in those two facilities so Calgary having an indoor stadium would likely result in the city hosting the Grey Cup every 4 or 5 years which is a week long festivity. There would likely be the opportunity to house some larger scale concerts or exhibitions year around like you see in BC place as well as you don't have this big outdoor stadium idle for 6 or 7 months of a year.

If the thing is meant to be a fieldhouse as well as house Stamps games, I doubt the idea is to have it host a bunch of concerts or exhibitions that will tie the place up and block the intended use of the money to build a fieldhouse.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

McMahon is now considered the worst outdoor stadium in the country so any new outdoor stadium is going to look fantastic in comparison. I liked the Flames vision of an indoor stadium because this country really only has two indoor stadiums (BC Place and Rogers Center). Most of the Grey Cups in the past few decades have been held in those two facilities so Calgary having an indoor stadium would likely result in the city hosting the Grey Cup every 4 or 5 years which is a week long festivity. There would likely be the opportunity to house some larger scale concerts or exhibitions year around like you see in BC place as well as you don't have this big outdoor stadium idle for 6 or 7 months of a year.

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

Also posted in the Edmonton is No Good thread - thought it applied to both:

http://calgaryherald.com/news/politi...lenges-calgary

This is straight from the NHL/Ken King playbook - Calgary is falling behind Edmonton!

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...iver-1.4086136

lol - wtf. "Calgary's mayor says the time has finally come to clean up the source of the decades-old waste next to the Bow River."

If they only had a large scale project they could use to piggyback on to force the province and Feds to act on the cleanup.

[trumpethead]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Not sure what you are WTFing about. The city has wanted that cleaned up for a long time now. That requirement exists entirely independent of whether or not CalgaryNext is a good or bad idea.

You don't find the timing of this a bit odd? Nenshi makes a public plea a mere 48 hrs after CalgaryNext gets kiboshed. I know exactly what he is WTFing about and I agree. Nenshi loves to play his little games.

[You Need a Thneed]

My opinion: I don't see how a CFL stadium/ rodeo/ chucks grandstand combination would work well for any of those uses. It would essentially have to have a retractable turf field.

For the part of the stands that are in the infield, if they are too high, they block views of chuckwagons. If they are too low, they aren't great for CFL. There would be lots of logistics issues due to the track.

The only way it could possibly work I think is if the field was removable, and they would haul in dirt every year for the stampede. There would be significant annual cost to do this, and the Stamps would forever be on the road for the first month of the season.

[Joborule]

I think the fact that Stamps would have to miss out on essentially all of July for home games, which is the most attractive part of the season to draw crowds to their games, makes the concept DOA.

There should be at least one home game during the Stampede, and two-three home games for the month in total.

[RW99]

Originally Posted by trumpethead

You don't find the timing of this a bit odd? Nenshi makes a public plea a mere 48 hrs after CalgaryNext gets kiboshed. I know exactly what he is WTFing about and I agree. Nenshi loves to play his little games.

This was not directly related to the death of CalgaryNext. The province just announced funding yesterday to further monitor the contamination and Nenshi believes its a good time to put some pressure on the province to pay to clean it up. So blame the province for the timing.

[RM14]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I think the fact that Stamps would have to miss out on essentially all of July for home games, which is the most attractive part of the season to draw crowds to their games, makes the concept DOA.

There should be at least one home game during the Stampede, and two-three home games for the month in total.

I agree with this. The Stamps have always avoided the two Stampede weekends. I would love to see an annual game branded "The Stampede Classic", and perhaps pull in some tourists. You'd think some visitors wouldn't mind mixing in a football game while they're in town.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by RW99

This was not directly related to the death of CalgaryNext. The province just announced funding yesterday to further monitor the contamination and Nenshi believes its a good time to put some pressure on the province to pay to clean it up. So blame the province for the timing.

It's all a big conspiracy!

The city got the Flames to set up the CalgaryNext project to get some pressure on the province for a clean up. In doing so, the city had a handshake agreement in place with the Flames for the Victoria Park arena. City wins the clean up with the province, Flames get a new rink.

[nik-]

It's been pretty clear from the start that if the city was going to pay for remediation, they didn't want the giant tax black hole that CalgaryNEXT would have been. It was discussed often in the multitude of threads. Not sure why this is really shocking or getting people's jimmies rustled.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Muta

I'm not saying do it now. I'm just saying the longer you wait, the higher labour costs go. That's simply the case with any infrastructure development as they're postponed. The city knows that there's an expanded tax base to be tapped into once the West Village is developed. That said, it would be dumb to do it now with no concrete development plan in place and lose the tax / revenue generated from the dealerships / Greyhound station, respectively.

Doesn't change the fact that the land has to be remediated at some point. Also, the process isn't as easy as just 'removing' the contaminated soil as part of construction... there's runoff and drainage issues with the river close by that has to be addressed in the process. It's not as simple as it seems.

Are you referring to inflation?

[Table 5]

How fast does creosote decompose? Maybe we just need to wait this sucker out for a few centuries.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by RW99

This was not directly related to the death of CalgaryNext. The province just announced funding yesterday to further monitor the contamination and Nenshi believes its a good time to put some pressure on the province to pay to clean it up. So blame the province for the timing.

Bingo.

Province: "We'll keep monitoring, but we won't do anything about it."

Nenshi: "FFS guys, get off your asses and fix this as it is your responsibility."


Like I said, just part of the same long-running pissing match.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by New Era

If they only had a large scale project they could use to piggyback on to force the province and Feds to act on the cleanup.

That's a political time bomb for the provincial government.

The province gave nothing to Katz for Rogers Centre - the city made up the difference.

Even if the Province gave money for the cleanup, someone in Edmonton would make the argument that the province helped the Flames build their new rink and didn't help Edmonton!

Good luck explaining that.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

Isn't a horse track large enough to put a football field inside it? This is an honest question, I know the infield of a Nascar track has been used to hose a football game before, although IIRC it was a half mile track

I've measured before, and a CFL field would just barely fit right now if the grandstand stage was taken out, along with the two buildings that flank the infield stands. A field would fit no problem inside the proper race track, but there is, but there isn't really a configuration that would make sense for both.

Originally Posted by Ducay

I don't mind the Grandstand/Field combination, but isn't the whole rationale for including the football field in the plan so that you could 2for1 in a fieldhouse for the city? A new, but still cruddy, outdoor football field isn't really addressing a need for the city.

IMO the fieldhouse/stadium is not the most effective combination. Look at Lindsay Park, Genesis Centre, etc. - they run very busy/full 365 days a year. I know a fieldhouse is different, but if done properly, I think there is 365 demand on the space. Football games are Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons - the same peak demand times as the fieldhouse would have for regular use.

The 2 in 1 combo that makes sense to me is football stadium/event space-tradeshow floor. Instead of the BMO/Corral expansion, I'd look at a modular, reconfigurable design on an indoor stadium. You could have a concert in one end zone at night (ie. Corral) and use the rest of the footprint for a tradeshow or other event the same day. Retractable seating could offer great flexibility for a wide variety of events.

The big question mark is whether this is in addition to, or instead of the current grandstand and race track. Far too complex an issue to really get into here, but the instead of option would likely mean the end of chuckwagon racing at the Stampede. Many will balk that it could never happen, but it most certainly could. This set up could dramatically improve the entertainment product every day of Stampede (both afternoon and evening rodeos (shorter) and an even more polished grandstand show that doesn't rely on a tractor to haul in its stage).

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Whatever the hypothetical arrangement would be for a football stadium in Stampede Park, if the Stamps played there, they would be forced onto the road for a month in the middle of the season, every season.

The Stampede itself is only 10 days, but the grounds are full of people building things and getting ready at least two weeks before it starts and then tearing down for at least a week after. It just doesn't seem feasible, even though I personally would love it if they played there.

This is a strong argument against my idea above, but it's not too far off the current reality (the Stamps are always on the road consecutive weeks over Stampede time). We are really talking about two home dates being compromised - the week before and week after stampede. And the only compromise is parking. It would all depend on where exactly the building is set, but it would be possible to mitigate a bit through set-up/tear-down planning, and perhaps a dedicated shuttle set up from downtown parkades (near total vacancy at times Stamps would be playing).

I don't know if it's too early/impossible for them to get their by week immediately after the 2 road games, but that would knock the compromise date down to 1.

I'd take 2 days of Stampeder compromise to achieve 363 days of most effective usage, compared with the alternative.

Originally Posted by temple5

As an aside, it is a unusually poor article from Don Braid where he attempts to equate the government money spent in Edmonton on Museums to Calgary getting a ring road. I wonder if Mr Braid has spent any time driving in Edmonton except to and from the Leduc International Airport and downtown. Edmonton already has 100% of its ring road built where Calgary only has 50% completed and a semi commitment to have it 75% done in 7 years.

I acknowledge an incomplete 'ring' is a bit of a binary thing, but wouldn't 75% and 87.5% be much more accurate numbers for your last sentence?

A random thought that I'm sure has occurred to many: I wonder how much more buyer's remorse would exist up north if they hadn't landed #97. I think the fan outrage might have boiled over if there was any hockey justice in this world and they toiled for another few years in the basement of the standings.

[Bill Bumface]

I love how people all the sudden care about creosote if it helps drive their view on the issue. No one gave a crap for a very long time, but conveniently now it's a huge public issue.

If it isn't getting worse, wait until the city reaches 2M people. Then we will actually need the land, and have a much larger tax base to draw from.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I think the fact that Stamps would have to miss out on essentially all of July for home games, which is the most attractive part of the season to draw crowds to their games, makes the concept DOA.

There should be at least one home game during the Stampede, and two-three home games for the month in total.

I am pretty sure that the Stamps hardly ever (not going to say never because I'm not 100% sure) play a home game during the stampede. I went back the last few years and they are always on the road around that time.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by New Era

If they only had a large scale project they could use to piggyback on to force the province and Feds to act on the cleanup.

Nice try. CalgaryNEXT was probably the worst way to force the province/feds into acting on the cleanup.

First, any conceptual project coming along in general is the dream scenario for the province/feds because it probably means the city or the developer will just say "**** it we'll do it ourselves". The only way you're forcing the province/fed's hand here is the environmental and "right thing to do" angle.

Second, cost/schedule objectives are perfectly opposed. CalgaryNEXT wants fast. Province/feds would want low cost. Unfortunately the fastest method is the most expensive while the lowest cost method is the slowest.

Third, after they gave Edmonton nothing, do you honestly believe the province is going to take on the political grenade of trying to explain that funding the remediation for a new Calgary arena is "totally different I swear" than funding the arena itself. Not a chance.