CalgaryNEXT project on pause, says Ken King

[Yoho]

CalgaryNEXT project on pause, says Ken King calgaryherald.com/news/local-new… #yyccc #yyc

http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-...-says-ken-king

[Trojan97]

Originally Posted by Yoho

CalgaryNEXT project on pause, says Ken King calgaryherald.com/news/local-new… #yyccc #yyc

http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-...-says-ken-king

"Sixteen months after the Flames organization first unveiled its plans for a new arena, stadium and field house, King said he’s hopeful there will be progress in the new year.

2017 should be the year that we drop the flag and actually get past the starting line and into the race and get some serious work done,” he said."

Laugh

[Senator Clay Davis]

Pause, reset to plan B, whatever helps Ken sleep at night. But let's get on to those plan B designs and renderings.

[TheScorpion]

You can't pause something that never started!

This is some nonsense.

[btimbit]

Good. Come up with a real plan now

[rubecube]

I know that as someone sitting on the outside of the organization, I have no real right to judge Ken King's performance because I'm not privy to his performance in non-public roles, but man the guy doesn't do himself any favours.

[activeStick]

This is actually getting comical and pretty embarrassing for those responsible for the project. Delays happen and that's not why it's embarrassing - it's the management, communication and optics that screams amateur hour.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

The one thing I will say, with no idea what's going on with these proceedings, is our city, especially under this mayor is netoriously difficult to deal with. Probably going to be a lot of starting and stopping on this project, and given the Flames are the only ones with any motivation to communicate on this project (and rightfully so, they want the rink the most) it will be them delivering the messages.

I guess you could say it's their own fault for how early they communicated, but I'm not going to critique them looping in their fans on their high level plans. I also don't envy them having to work past this cities very archauque way of doing business on a project this large.

[Vinny01]

I think a lot of this hinges on the Olympic bid

[Funkhouser]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

The one thing I will say, with no idea what's going on with these proceedings, is our city, especially under this mayor is netoriously difficult to deal with. Probably going to be a lot of starting and stopping on this project, and given the Flames are the only ones with any motivation to communicate on this project (and rightfully so, they want the rink the most) it will be them delivering the messages.

I guess you could say it's their own fault for how early they communicated, but I'm not going to critique them looping in their fans on their high level plans. I also don't envy them having to work past this cities very archauque way of doing business on a project this large.

Nope, Calgary has a (justified) reputation of being extremely developer friendly. The zoning restrictions are limited, code is light, heritage preservation is non-existent, the city typically covers the cost of any related infrastructure and almost any derogation is negotiable. This project's failure to progress cannot be faulted on the city.

The Flames on the other hand developed a high risk concept in isolation and tried to engage the City at the same time as the public. If they had any idea what they were doing, they would have developed numerous concepts in collaboration with the city in order to determine what was an wasn't feasible, then engaged the public once a concept was more realistic.

if King did this in isolation, he deserves the axe. If not, his yes men also deserve the axe. Oiler level management...embarrassing.

[Vinny01]

Nm

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I think a lot of this hinges on the Olympic bid

A thought so nice, you said it twice!

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Funkhouser

Nope, Calgary has a (justified) reputation of being extremely developer friendly. The zoning restrictions are limited, code is light, heritage preservation is non-existent, the city typically covers the cost of any related infrastructure and almost any derogation is negotiable. This project's failure to progress cannot be faulted on the city.

The Flames on the other hand developed a high risk concept in isolation and tried to engage the City at the same time as the public. If they had any idea what they were doing, they would have developed numerous concepts in collaboration with the city in order to determine what was an wasn't feasible, then engaged the public once a concept was more realistic.

if King did this in isolation, he deserves the axe. If not, his yes men also deserve the axe. Oiler level management...embarrassing.

I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of the cities property development reputation. For most anything else I've heard of, far more difficult than other cities in Canada to deal with. But maybe that's not the case on this project at all, I won't pretend to know.

Regardless of the situation, I'm very interested in how many fans on here feel this has been poorly managed? Poorly managed for who? How do we know the Flames are even behind on their own timelines for this. How do we know the Flames owners are upset by how this is going. Any fan who thinks this is poorly managed is making a huge leap likely based on their own desires to have a new rink already? Maybe Flames ownership is very happy to swing for the fences on this project versus getting the deal fir a new rink done fast as possible.

It's just comical that a bunch of people who have no idea what Ken King's bosses have mandated him to do have decided "he's doing it poorly" based for the most part on the fact that they don't like Edmonton got a new rink first.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I know that as someone sitting on the outside of the organization, I have no real right to judge Ken King's performance because I'm not privy to his performance in non-public roles, but man the guy doesn't do himself any favours.

How so? What do you expect him to say or do? I think King's contributions to the Flames and their ownership has been for the most part very positive as he's the man that started the organizational turnaround in 2001. I didn't like the meddling into hockey operations but that's been taken care of. Honestly there are some here so opposed to CalgaryNEXT that there's nothing positive he could ever do in their eyes. All this shows me is that King and the Flames are willing to listen to the city's proposal as there's been no kicking and screaming and if anything it's been Nenshi that's been contentious (that's his nature so I don't think that would matter what the project was) throughout the process. I think the city really doesn't have a clue about what it will cost to renovate McMahon and that's going to be the sticking point as the Flames already looked into that and concluded it wasn't feasable. Fieldhouse in the NW is great for those of us that live on the north side of the city though.

[home_sweet_dome]

i remember back in 2007 when King told me the Flames would be playing in a new arena by 2015, hahahaha.

How the joke that is KK is still employed is one of life's great mysteries.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by home_sweet_dome

i remember back in 2007 when King told me the Flames would be playing in a new arena by 2015, hahahaha.

How the joke that is KK is still employed is one of life's great mysteries.

He should be fired for not having a crystal ball? I don't think in 2007 he could have predicted the recessions and flood that clearly are the main reasons for the delay as well as the acquisition of the Stampeders which added the McMahon situation to his plate. The man may be the reason the team is still in Calgary so it's a mystery to me why there's such contempt for him amongst some fans.

[home_sweet_dome]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He should be fired for not having a crystal ball? I don't think in 2007 he could have predicted the recessions and flood that clearly are the main reasons for the delay as well as the acquisition of the Stampeders which added the McMahon situation to his plate. The man may be the reason the team is still in Calgary so it's a mystery to me why there's such contempt for him amongst some fans.

LOL what? What exactly has he done that's been so great??

The CalgaryNEXT proposal has been complete amateur hour on so many levels.

Slimy, arrogant man who's been around for so long and accomplished what exactly??

I could argue if he walked out the Dome and never came back it would actually be the best thing he's done for the franchise lol.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I think the city really doesn't have a clue about what it will cost to renovate McMahon and that's going to be the sticking point as the Flames already looked into that and concluded it wasn't feasable.

Now I'm just skeptical by nature, but it couldn't possibly be that the Flames made it seem it's "not feasible" to renovate McMahon because saying so helped make CalgaryNEXT seem like a better idea? Because I'm feeling pretty confident the city will be presenting the Flames with a renovation plan it deems "feasible". Whether the Flames agree or not, we'll see. But you know as I do it's a sales pitch. If the Flames came right out from the beginning and said renovating McMahon was feasible, CalgaryNEXT would be DOA on day one.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He should be fired for not having a crystal ball? I don't think in 2007 he could have predicted the recessions and flood that clearly are the main reasons for the delay as well as the acquisition of the Stampeders which added the McMahon situation to his plate. The man may be the reason the team is still in Calgary so it's a mystery to me why there's such contempt for him amongst some fans.

If he planned an arena being completed in 2015 they should have had a proposal to the city with their plan by 2009. This would have allowed them to break ground in 2011 and be done in 2013 just before the flood hit. You work through the recessions to get your projects ready to go. You don't just stop all work. Cause the economy sucks

So he didn't need to predict recessions or floods he needed to set reasonable timelines for the project and meet them.

[GreenLantern2814]

Why were they not submitting the same basic proposal as Edmonton with minor tweaks and improvements six months after the Oilers got theirs approved? How is it so much more difficult to get a $450 million arena deal done in Calgary as opposed to Edmonton?

Seems like the city would have gone along with that pretty willingly. But no, they had to reinvent the goddamn wheel with a $2 billion farce that won't be completed until 2025 if they started yesterday.

Sure undermines the urgency of the situation when you're willing to wait a decade to build something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world for a reason.