[greyshep]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

I typed this out on Reddit, but I'll repost it here - regarding any talk of CalgaryNEXT:

CalgaryNEXT was dead on the day it was announced. It's literally impossible to make that proposal work in that location with that financing structure.

The city spent several months doing studies, and concluded that on top of the $890 million building cost, there would be about $500 million in directly related costs (land, moving roadways, land cleanup, etc), AND another $500 million in indirect costs (additional costs to get other land in the area ready for the redevelopment that would have to happen to pay for the facility cost, etc). The remaining land to redevelop wasn't very large, or prime land, because the CalgaryNEXT facility was so big. All the while, the sports groups who would have stake in the field house portion, had hesitations on availability of the facility, etc.

It was a TERRIBLE proposal that should have had Ken King fired on the spot.