Quote:
Originally Posted by RM14
The area is slated for redevelopment with or without a new arena complex as is the Crowchild corridor. The Crowchild plan, pedestrian bridge, and land remediation are costs that should not be included in the project's price tag as they will happen independent of the project.
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That may be the case, but while you can proceed with the big picture West Village vision without the stadium in there, you can't really do the stadium without thinking about the rest of the West Village issues.
The Flames don't have to look at this from a big-picture standpoint, but the City does. And if it doesn't make long-term sense, I doubt you'll get much approval/funding on the stadium front. For the City, the Flames stadium has to be one piece of a master puzzle in West Village, not the one piece you do now and figure out the rest later. It would be silly to build the stadium as the Flames want it, and then 5 years later try to re-align Bow Trail.
West Village and the valley corridor was always going to be a hairy, expensive, mess. Which is why I think the whole dollar picture needs to be considered. If the Flames don't want to be part of the long-term fix of that mess, they need to build on a more traditional piece of land.