Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
I know that 4 of the NHL arenas built in Canada were privately financed. Rogers in Vancouver, Air CAnada Centre in Toronto, Scotia Bank Centre in Ottawa and the Bell Centre in Montreal. Not sure about Winnipeg but this shows that arenas can be privately built and in Canada are the majority. The downside is that the smaller markets owners of both Vancouver and Ottawa went bankrupt shortly after their arenas were built.
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MTS was a mix: 30% from all levels of government (no idea on the split, I imagine the feds amount was rather insignificant) and 70% private (so ~$40M public money). There is also a rather convoluted arrangement with ticket surcharges and VLT money that leads to tax breaks and other stuff but everything I can find on MTS is rather unlike most area deals that involve public money, it's kind of weird. The public money was largely due to the SHED (Sports, Hospitality and Entertainment District) Winnipeg is developing that was centered around a new arena, further funding is based a TIF that will go into some theatre and convention centre development.
So far the public money going into MTS has been extremely beneficial as it is the third busiest arena for non-sporting events in the country despite its capacity (and that smaller capacity actually helps as it can double as a large venue and an excellent mid-size venue that other arenas can't). From what I have found, the tax breaks are due to the ticket surcharges and VLT money performing better than expected.
When compared to Ottawa, that was just a bad project in the first place. But the problem came when the Senators owners were forced to cover the entire debt without refinancing (it was a bad financing deal to start off with which is why the mortgage holders went bankrupt in the first place), something they didn't expect. Had they been able to refinance and make it until the lockout (and therefore the dollar being better) they may not have gone bankrupt.
I don't recall the Canucks ever going bankrupt, I know they were close but I'm pretty sure they held on despite the cost overruns of GM Place.