Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
It is not close at all. The city of Edmonton and it's taxpayers put up almost 75% of the funding and gave the Katz group ridiculous rights to land development and profits associated to the area. Katz only put up shy of $20M to build the arena and the city was left with the rest. Paying $100M rent over 35 years to make up the rest of his meager contribution is completely laughable.
I have been against public funding for this building in Calgary, but I can at least see the logic here as we have fought for a more fair deal and should recoup our investment over time. The 35 year agreement is also a fantastic safeguard against any sort of shenanigans on the part of the ownership group. The same surely cannot be said for Edmonton. Sucks to be them.
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Fair point, I wasn’t looking at the “facility fee” as a ticket tax in the same way as the Edmonton deal included a straight up surcharge on all tickets specifically for that purpose.