Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarley
The issue with West Village is that there's literally nothing there. It will take years to build out and will cannibalize multi-res absorption from the East Village / Vic Park if it gets started prior to those areas building out.
There's also a ton of capital cost involved in both the cleanup of the WV and the civil works (overhauling the street network etc.). Allocating a huge chunk of developable land to a massive sports complex does not help the pro-forma if the intent is to finance this thing via CRL.
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You're right there's nothing at WV because of the contamination, but revitalizing CalgaryNEXT, and getting the province to contribute to the cleanup may be the only chance of letting West Village amount to something in the long run.
The Rivers District development may have it's timeline of build out pushed because of this, but there isn't anything that would hold it back from getting developed fully. East Village started hot, but has cooled down the last while with a lot of the development focused in the Beltline currently. But the only thing holding back EV right now is the market. West Village most likely needs some catalytic/anchor development to make the contamination cleanup process startup, and let that area have a chance to utilize it's potential.
I much prefer the arena being at the current Stampede location because the I think it's an appropriate fit for the entertainment district they are wanting to build out there, and it's near all the 3/4 LRT lines around there. But I can see why CSEC wants to have all their properties under one (big) house, and possibly have carte blanche land for real estate development. Even if the arena still goes through at the Stampede, something gotta be done about the football stadium. And I don't think anyone is truly interested in renovating/keeping McMahon Stadium; especially the university.