Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
You omit some key details, like the new ownership group bargaining in bad faith:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattl..._Oklahoma_City
Many messy lawsuits ensued; the owners ended up paying Seattle $75M to break the lease, and another $30M in relocation fee.
And from everything I've read, the Key Arena renovation was 100% privately funded...
So...playing hardball worked out pretty damn well. |
Not at all comparable with the Calgary situation. To begin with, there was already infrastructure in place that formed the basis for the renovation. The group, which was largely driven by Amazon, applied for $70M in tax credits for preserving the historic roof of the structure. More importantly, with a metro population of nearly four times the metro population of Calgary, an arena/entertainment venue in Seattle will likely actually be profitable for the owners, as it has the potential to be used to capacity most nights.
Calgary doesn't have Amazon backing the development of an event centre, and it doesn't have the population to fill it every night. So the city has to decide whether it would rather save the tax dollars or go without an event centre, because it can't realistically do both. This isn't to say that either choice is right or wrong, only that playing hardball with the Flames will not get the same result as Seattle got.