Quote:
Originally Posted by getbak
The area north of the Saddledome would be large enough for both an arena and stadium. I made this a few months ago...
Some people have mentioned that Calgary Transit wants to close the transit garage on the east side there, so if that were to happen, there would be lots of room for an arena, stadium, and other developments. |
Yes and no. It's complicated, let's just say that.
I think that there is some desire within the organization to move away from the Victoria Park Transit Centre, but other segments of Calgary Transit don't want to. I think there is a certain line of thinking within Calgary Transit that having the centrally-located facility provides operational advantages that shouldn't be given up so easily. I personally disagree with that, especially when faced with the huge value that selling that land would bring.
Either way, any move would require at least one new facility to be built, and likely either an expansion to one of the other existing ones (likely Spring Gardens) or a second new facility. There is a huge garage space crunch right now and not only would you need to entirely replace the capacity of Victoria Park but provide enough room to handle the current and future demand which is not being satisfied right now. Funding and site acquisition/preparation for a new facility have been elusive.
I don't think you could count on the Victoria Park Transit Centre lands to be available on any sort of predictable time frame so as to be included in arena/stadium plans. Maybe if you kept it as an option for a stadium to be added as a possible later phase to the plan.