Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
First, in any normal circumstance a potential lessee would never do an environmental study at this stage. That would be a condition of the lease, and paid for by the lessor. And if one hasn't been done like you say, that's on Calgary, not the Flames. I suspect at least a Phase One has been done recently.
Second, a concept scheme, as opposed to detailed architectural plans, is always a starting point when dealing with a municipality. And I don't find anything odd in not telling the City there's a plan B in this particular negotiation (it would be a tactic in a different one, where the City was afraid of a move, or something).
Both the design and the funding models are high level, intended to initiate a process, not end it. I'm not fussed about either, since they will change of necessity.
The key for me is whether the City deems it desirable to (a) clean up the site which has to happen at some point anyway and (b) if it is a better use of the land than either what's there now or what other options are out there for land use. If these questions point to the proposed land use, then it's just a matter of negotiating funding.
ETA: a quick look tells me there were at least some environmental studies done in 2013-14. They didn't report on cleanup costs however. Just current conditions.
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Yes my bad for not being clearer. I'm not suggesting the Flames will be responsible for cleanup (unless that's negotiated as part of the deal), and I actually think there has been ongoing monitoring since at least '88 or so, and a number of studies along the way. However, as the City has noted, none have been completed that deal with the cost of full remediation and the scope of what that will actually entail.
As has also been noted, we're talking hundreds in millions in an ask for land value, cleanup, and infrastructure improvements. It's unknown how many hundreds of millions, but we can all guess it won't be a small number given what the site looks like and the existing road issues in that area.
The CalgaryNEXT team needs to negotiate with the City of Calgary, but part of that will be negotiating indirectly with the taxpayers of the City of Calgary to get them on board to support council with whatever decisions will need to be made. Thus, my point was, the Flames drawing lines in the sand in their public communications, which is separate from their direct negotiations with the municipality, is bad optics to me. This is obviously just my opinion and certainly I can appreciate everyone may not feel the same, but I'm far more likely to be voicing support to my councilor for a project like this if they treat the public as interested stakeholders from day 1, instead of the silly grandstanding and posturing with references to having no other plans (which we all know isn't true) and that this is their best and final offer (also not true unless they have no idea what they are doing). Perhaps I'm mistaken, and it is a better negotiating tactic for the Flames to go down the path of making people scared the team will move if they don't get a new arena and that their offer right now is more than generous and fair so let's pressure council to get this ball rolling, but I sincerely doubt that. Time will tell I guess. Just feels poorly communicated to date.
Specifically, in reference to your comment "Both the design and the funding models are high level, intended to initiate a process, not end it. I'm not fussed about either, since they will change of necessity." I entirely agree. KK's public comments about "best offer, take it or leave it, this is the only plan we've got" suggest otherwise. Those type of comments after promising we'd be delivered a transformative project that would be the biggest and boldest in the City's history (where is that project, it sure wasn't what CalgaryNEXT announced) are what I mean when I speak of poor optics.