Quote:
Originally Posted by Frequitude
I disagree. The poor renderings were merely a focus of ridicule, not at all the reason the concept was poorly received.
The concept was purely received because it:
a) Asked for too much public money for the inside-battery-limits facility itself
b) Ignored the outside-battery-limits infrastructure and tie-in costs which the city (i.e. the citizens) would have to bear.
c) Turned a dedicated fieldhouse with ample parking into a fieldhouse with poor parking and massive scheduling conflicts, all for the same amount of money.
d) Accelerated the development of the west village ahead of the east village filling out.
e) Took up a massive chunk of the prime riverfront land in the west village.
f) In doing the above, implying that they think we're all idiots.
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I'll offer some counter points to your positions.
a) The amount of money asked for was an opening point in a negotiation, which I don't have a problem with personally. Presenting it in the way they did didn't do them any favors though. That was a big mistake.
b) The 'outside-battery-limits' infrastructure needs to be taken care of regardless of what is eventually done in the West Village. The creosote needs to be cleaned up, and the sooner the better. The various roadways in the area are all poorly designed and need to be fixed regardless of what eventually goes in. All of these costs are going to happen either way, so I don't think the Flames were disingenuous to not include it in the original proposal.
c) I don't think the scheduling conflicts would be 'massive', more like minor or very occasional. And there was enough parking for the fieldhouse needs in the proposal, just not as much as we are used to seeing for arenas in the past.
d) East Village is pretty far along already. Most of the desirable building locations are already under construction, and some are nearly complete. By the time this project is ready to go the East Village will be at a similar density as the beltline. The timing for West Village redevelopment is pretty close at hand, CalgaryNEXT only proposed moving it up a few years.
e) Again you use 'massive', when I think that's an exaggeration. It will take a piece of ground to build this on obviously, but there is plenty of room for other stuff in the West Village also. And two other desirable pieces of real estate will become available for redevelopment as well, with McMahon going away and the other fieldhouse location not being needed.
f) I don't think they implied we were idiots with their proposal. I think they implied that they don't know how to win people to their side, or make a presentation that gets people excited. The lack of details and 'wow factor' was the biggest mistake in the proposal in my opinion. They needed to get taxpayers excited about this thing, and they completely blew their one chance at that.
Finally, just in the interest of full disclosure, I am generally in favor of some public money for arenas and stadiums. In my opinion these provide just as much to a community as green spaces, libraries, and public art, and should get a share of the public money pie. The CFL stadium in particular needs public money. Canadian football is either culturally significant enough to warrant public money, or it will go away. There is no way to build a football stadium in Canada and make money with it.