Quote:
Originally Posted by CroFlames
Billionaires have been exploiting municipalities for stadiums and arenas for a long time. Our billionaire wasn't going to be the first one to be pious and righteous and build a rink of his own money (that he earned from OUR oil, but I digress). So I've accepted the fact that public money will go towards this project. If done right, the public can recoup their investment.
What I simply CAN'T wrap my head around is the massive cost. 1.2 billion for an ARENA. Not even a stadium. Earlier in this thread I posted about Juventus stadium in Turin built in 2011 for $310 million in today's CAD. It's state of the art, with all the bells and whistles, 42,000 seats and a roof. How is our new arena (likely 18,000 seats) going to cost four-####ing-times as much?! I'm not even arguing the split of public vs private money here, but the sheer overall cost is staggering and I don't understand it. Italy is a G7 country too, and Northern Italy is very affluent and developed, not unlike us.
Hell, the new Totteham Hotspur stadium in ####ing LONDON with a capacity of 63,000 and a roof cost a billion pound, but that included the demolition of their old stadium, and development of surrounding area. Is Calgary really more expensive than London?
The posts about "stop your bitching" seem crazy to me if we can burn a cool billion and not ask questions.
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Technically, they are proposing to build a new entertainment district. If it was just an arena, it would be a lot less. They are kind of using a new arena to justify larger commercial and infrastructure improvements. It kind of makes sense if you are building a downtown arena. Arenas alone take up a large foot print and have a lot of dead space if the areas around them aren't developed.
Whether or not the long term economic gains justify the current costs, I have no idea. I can see why people are apprehensive, but part of me also thinks that sometime it is nice to have nice things. To use an analogy, driving a Hyundai might be cheaper and still get you to the same places as a Cadillac, but if you are spending a lot of time in car and still spending a lot of money anyway, riding in comfort has it's upside.