Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
To add to that, the facilities have a much wider appeal than some of the money spent by the city. We won't mention some of the ridiculous "art" projects that have gone on over the years. Let's just focus on the facilities.
I loved Jack Singer and the whole Art Commons project when it was built, but the reality is that space is for a very select group of people. That was built for rich people to go take in theatre, hear the symphony and watch the opera. It was great, but it was for a very specific niche market. Looking more broadly, the size of the available venues only bring in smaller acts, which is a major problem for the City itself. How many big acts bypass Calgary because there is not a suitable venue available to make the visit profitable? A lot. The only one who benefits from Calgary's lack of facilities is Edmonton. Calgary needs the facilities being promoted. Yes, they need some tweaks, but they are greatly needed and the central core is where they should be. Those big anchor tenants are the only way the site is going to be cleaned up and not left to be a blight. Trust me, I heard decades worth of proposals for the space only to have the cleanup costs scare away investors. The City needs to be involved in this just to get the site cleaned up. They may as well check off as many boxes as they can on their needs list.
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The post really checks off the CalgaryNEXT talking points.
- The city supports the arts! Why not hockey?!
- We keep missing out on concerts!
- Edmonton is beating us
- This is our only chance to cleanup WV!
Well done.