[trew]

I think that the best value for the city, would be to not build the fieldhouse, but rather just build the arena and event center.

I know Ken talked about the "savings" of building a combined building, but that doesn't take into account what could be built on the land instead of the field house and the incremental tax revenue that would result. (Repayment of a CRL is a much surer thing if you double the amount of land that goes to taxable development).

Tax revenues aside, I also just don't see how the Field house "works" in a downtown setting. At least with an event center, you will see regular weekday use of the facility; support for food, hotels and entertainment; and a large draw of attendees from the immediate surrounding area. I don't think the fieldhouse will provide any additional stimulus, and probably actually will even have a negative effect due to it's size and how it will push all the commercial and residential development into the margins of the community.

Oh, not to mention if there isn't a huge barn in the middle of the West Village to run roads around, they could look at re-aligning Bow Trail... perhaps in a way that would fix the "Death Merge" into Northbound Crowchild.