Geeze, Tinordi, not only have I heard the argument, I've actually read the 2009 West Village plan. Have you? It fell apart because they wanted to do the 2017 expo there and it wouldn't work financially. And that CRL didn't have lots of money for cleanup. They only bought the land in 2009, well after the West Village plan was commissioned. And the actual cost for remediation turned out to be way higher than what they publicly stated when buying it (though they had been warned).
http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-...-cleanup-costs
The issue I was initially commenting on was whether Bettman was lying. He wasn't - he was making the owners' argument. The City's analysis gave a price, the owners claimed thatw as way overestimated.
I am not making an argument about the numbers. They may well say that CalgaryNEXT was impossible fiscally. I'm saying that no developer is going to touch the area without the City first cleaning it up.