CalgaryNEXT Discussion pt. 2

[shermanator]

What does it say about the current proposal when only 25% of Calgarypuck members have said they support it? And this is the polling from the subsection of Calgarians that would be most likely to support a proposal for a new arena.

What's in front of us is simply not good enough. The Flames need to go back to the drawing board or else the conversation will never move forward.

[calf]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that Bettman should make a statement that City Council should have more urgency about the proposal. Considering the Mayor has responded and created a framework to evaluate the proposal even though it's half-baked. The City is reporting back on feasibility of a billion $ plus proposal on an incredibly complicated site by April. How much more urgency should we have?

Not to mention, the onus should be on Flames to make it compelling for The City to accept (or at least to be able to negotiate against). Facts, details, full scope, full costing, full cost recovery plan. But right now it seems that the Flames want to get the City to start negotiating against itself, which will end up being a bad deal for tax payers.

[Southside]

Originally Posted by Addick

It's a Council day and his job is to be the head of Council. In terms of importance, dealing with local stakeholders presenting their final proposals should be ahead of meeting with a third party associated with the potential applicants of a substantially incomplete proposal.

Is "Council day" code for I'm gonna blow twitter up today? Really? If you don't have time for Bettman why are you on twitter all day? As a taxpayer and Flames fan I'd appreciate the mayor keeping ideas and communication flowing. This ##### is getting real. We need some leaders to emerge on this issue.

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by Southside

Is "Council day" code for I'm gonna blow twitter up today? Really? If you don't have time for Bettman why are you on twitter all day? As a taxpayer and Flames fan I'd appreciate the mayor keeping ideas and communication flowing. This ##### is getting real. We need some leaders to emerge on this issue.

Why does no one respond to Bunks posts when attacking the mayor?

Too well thought out?

Too logical?

[GirlySports]

Bunk can MS Paint that's why

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Arenas like Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal etc were all funded by their respective owners.


???

I think you better check on the tax breaks etc., given to these arena's before blankly stating they were all funded by the respective owners, as Winnipeg for one gets $13M in 2015 alone from the government.

[flamesfan6]

I still don't understand why people hate Nenshi for not wanting to spend millions of tax payers money on a horrible proposal? It's not his job to make the arena work - it's the Flames who need to step up and actually think and propose something good.

I'm starting to think CP is not full of 100k+/year earners, and in fact no one on CP pays taxes to the city.

Why don't our billionaire owners pay for this?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Nenshi has no obligation to Bettman.

No he doesn't. And he doesn't have any obligation to the Canadian Tourism Board, the Alberta 55 Plus Summer Games, the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Dairy Board, the Manitoba Association of Municipalities, or any of the other of the dozens of groups he meets with on a weekly basis as a glad-handing, stetson-giving representative of the city. But he does it anyway, because it's his job.

[flamesfan6]

You do realize that proposals and budgets never are accurate right? So 200 million from the city for the fieldhouse will actually be more like 300 million...

How about we actually look where cities benefited from public funded sports arenas - it's going to be an extremely small percentage if any.

You all think the team moving would hurt the city - how? season ticket holders are going to be mostly local (80%) - That 80% will spend the money in the city in other ways (golf memberships, gym, etc) - bars will still have people go to them to watch sports, the flames are not a huge tourist trap that people travel to the city and spend lots of money here for.

Why are you all wanting to have the city spend $200+ million on a new arena right now, definitely when the economy is in the state it is, when there will not be a benefit to the city to do so.

edit - I just don't get why the hate isn't on the Flames group for not coming up with better proposals, it's not Nenshi's job to make this work, it's the flames.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that Bettman should make a statement that City Council should have more urgency about the proposal. Considering the Mayor has responded and created a framework to evaluate the proposal even though it's half-baked. The City is reporting back on feasibility of a billion $ plus proposal on an incredibly complicated site by April. How much more urgency should we have?

Yup, the city is giving the proposal more time than it deserves. Frankly, it's obvious to anyone who can do the math (as you did a couple of days ago), that the financing model doesn't work, and it's not particularly close to working either. The proposed CRL will struggle to repay ANY amount of money for CalgaryNEXT, once you factor in the extra costs (cleanup and other related infrastructure) that would have to be part of the CRL, and the small amount of prime land left over to actually raise property tax income.

When there's also very little thought into how the complex is actually going to be the "heart" of a new entertainment district (little connectivity), it should be obvious that the whole thing needs to go back to the drawing board.

The proposal was to build a grandiose, less than fully functioning building, on land that they don't own, using a funding model that involved mostly other people's money, but that doesn't even matter because the funding model doesn't even work in the first place.

I've said it before, but the CalgaryNEXT announcement could be done by many of us in a few hours of work, the only difference would be that our renders might be slightly less polished, but there may be some here that could do a fairly good rendering as well. How hard it is to come up with a couple of high level renderings, place them on land you don't own (and haven't talked to the owner about acquiring), and come up with some random idea about how to pay for the thing without considering if it makes any sense?

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

I still don't understand why people hate Nenshi for not wanting to spend millions of tax payers money on a horrible proposal? It's not his job to make the arena work - it's the Flames who need to step up and actually think and propose something good.

I'm starting to think CP is not full of 100k+/year earners, and in fact no one on CP pays taxes to the city.

Why don't our billionaire owners pay for this?

Who's hating on him for that???

People are hating on him for not meeting with Bettman today and for being a petulant dink in his public response regarding why.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

No he doesn't. And he doesn't have any obligation to the Canadian Tourism Board, the Alberta 55 Plus Summer Games, the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Dairy Board, the Manitoba Association of Municipalities, or any of the other of the dozens of groups he meets with on a weekly basis as a glad-handing, stetson-giving representative of the city. But he does it anyway, because it's his job.

Perhaps Nenshi and his organizers didn't know he was coming in to town and Bettman didn't ask for a visit? I'll be every organization you named actually booked the mayor's time.

Our Mayor doesn't have to meet with what equates to a celebrity, just because he shows up in our city and goes in front of a microphone. Pretty sure Nenshi or Notley didn't meet with Leo DiCaprio after he expressed his concerns over climate change in this part of the province and implied governments have to take action.

Or does celebrity matter?

[Tinordi]

How dare Nenshi not make time to hear a sales pitch he's heard before and is already evaluating.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Who's hating on him for that???

People are hating on him for not meeting with Bettman today and for being a petulant dink in his public response regarding why.

Meet over what? Stuff he has already been told?
How about calgary flames and bettman come up with a new plan? What will Bettman have to say that Nenshi has not already heard from the flames ownership group? Nothing. Nenshi has more important things to do.

“I’m in council and I suggested that unless he’s got some new information that’s different than the last time we met him, it’s probably not worth his time,” said Nenshi.

http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/01/11...l-commissioner

So it's not like he hasn't met with him - just no reason to because there is absolutely nothing new other than a billionaire saying to build an arena in a city he doesn't know anything about outside it having a hockey team.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Sick burn. He's going to get major Speaker's Corner cred for that one.

I see it as an unprofessional comment, that doesn't benefit anyone or anything except Nenshi's ego.

[saillias]

Originally Posted by Southside

Is "Council day" code for I'm gonna blow twitter up today? Really? If you don't have time for Bettman why are you on twitter all day? As a taxpayer and Flames fan I'd appreciate the mayor keeping ideas and communication flowing. This ##### is getting real. We need some leaders to emerge on this issue.

Has anyone here actually bothered to read his twitter?

Nothing has gotten real. Bettman called them and asked to meet on extremely short notice when they were already in council meeting. Nenshi's office asked if there was any new information about the arena. The response was no so Nenshi declined.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by saillias

Has anyone here actually bothered to read his twitter?

Nothing has gotten real. Bettman called them and asked to meet on extremely short notice when they were already in council meeting. Nenshi's office asked if there was any new information about the arena. The response was no so Nenshi declined.

I posted it in the other thread, but what bothers me is the way he handled it. You can't really argue with him in that what is the point of the meeting, since there is no new info. But really instead of putting out a snarky release he could have just said that the city isn't prepared to discuss the project until the report on the land clean up comes in.

Honestly the city has to work with the Flames on this regardless of how much they are willing to chip in.

So changing gears....

How would everyone feel if the report came back and it was 50 million-ish to clean the site and the city offered to do the clean up, give them the land, and do some re-routing of roads? Flames are on the hook for the building(s), the ball is in their court if they want to build just a rink or a rink and football stadium.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

I posted it in the other thread, but what bothers me is the way he handled it. You can't really argue with him in that what is the point of the meeting, since there is no new info. But really instead of putting out a snarky release he could have just said that the city isn't prepared to discuss the project until the report on the land clean up comes in.

Honestly the city has to work with the Flames on this regardless of how much they are willing to chip in.

So changing gears....

How would everyone feel if the report came back and it was 50 million-ish to clean the site and the city offered to do the clean up, give them the land, and do some re-routing of roads? Flames are on the hook for the building(s), the ball is in their court if they want to build just a rink or a rink and football stadium.

I think Locke mentioned it in the other thread, the city doesn't want the Flames to actually be on the hook for or fully own the buildings. The city still wants some control of the facilities and I'm pretty sure 200-300 million total from the city would start negotiations. The CalgaryNEXT project is so out of whack it can't even start negotiations. The $240 million community levy is a non-starter. And the city has full budgets until 2017-2018.

The Flames are treating this project as if they're doing the city a favour that the city can't refuse.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I think Locke mentioned it in the other thread, the city doesn't want the Flames to actually be on the hook for or fully own the buildings. The city still wants some control of the facilities and I'm pretty sure 200-300 million total from the city would start negotiations. The CalgaryNEXT project is so out of whack it can't even start negotiations. The $240 million community levy is a non-starter. And the city has full budgets until 2017-2018.

The Flames are treating this project as if they're doing the city a favour that the city can't refuse.

Why wouldn't they act like that though? Obviously they will try and milk whatever they can out of the city, and you can't fault them for it. It's just the starting point in the negotiations, Flames ask for the world then the city comes back and says you get nothing, then the Flames will counter and so on. That's why I don't know why a lot of people are getting upset about rich people looking for a hand out, or people complaining the city isn't willing to contribute.

I just don't understand the way the Flames went about it. Come in with a half baked proposal, because you can't actually negotiate or move forward until the land study is done. They should have just stopped planning anything until the spring when the cost of the clean up was known.

[Funkhouser]

Originally Posted by shermanator

What does it say about the current proposal when only 25% of Calgarypuck members have said they support it? And this is the polling from the subsection of Calgarians that would be most likely to support a proposal for a new arena.

What's in front of us is simply not good enough. The Flames need to go back to the drawing board or else the conversation will never move forward.

Its shocking they came forward with one option. Typically, you need to define your rationale and display why a variety of other scenarios are inferior. Sure your preference might differ, but you need to at least walk the public through your thought process if you are expecting them to contribute.

The way I see it, Bunk's proposal is far superior in almost every way. I would offer to help improve some of the visuals, but frankly, his communicate better than the Flames' architect so there isn't much need.

Beyond this, I am sure there are dozens of other scenarios which are worth exploring, some of which likely make more sense than CalgaryNEXXXTZ