[News] CalgaryNEXT Announcement. New arena details emerge.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by T@T

I'm back east on holiday's..did I miss the city approval announcement?

Did you miss that the calendar doesn't say 2009, and the Flames have spent years evaluating sites before coming forward with what it believes is the best proposal? This is the proposal that is going to be under scrutiny and debate for the next 12-24 months, and negotiating another site isn't in the cards unless this whole thing collapses and the timeline for building something is pushed out another 10-15 years. So 2023-2025 would also be an appropriate time to debate the merits of other locations.

Hey, since we're in 2009, this season hasn't really gone as I'd hoped. Who do you think we should trade to jumpstart a rebuild - Iginla or Phaneuf?

Of if we're in 2023-2025, why am I not dead yet?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Did you miss that the calendar doesn't say 2009, and the Flames have spent years evaluating sites before coming forward with what it believes is the best proposal? This is the proposal that is going to be under scrutiny and debate for the next 12-24 months, and negotiating another site isn't in the cards unless this whole thing collapses and the timeline for building something is pushed out another 10-15 years. So 2023-2025 would also be an appropriate time to debate the merits of other locations.

Hey, since we're in 2009, this season hasn't really gone as I'd hoped. Who do you think we should trade to jumpstart a rebuild - Iginla or Phaneuf?

Of if we're in 2023-2025, why am I not dead yet?

I have no doubt the flames feel downtown is the best for them, I think Mount Royal would fit my lifestyle too but since it isn't free Harvest Hills will have to do.

[Finger Cookin]

I wish you well on your separate, independent $890M development in Harvest Hills. Start a thread for it! Or maybe just try and enjoy our holidays instead.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Debating about alternate site locations seems pointless since the site has been chosen. The site argument is so 2009.

I don't know about 'pointless'. They put out a proposal that a piece of city-owned land would be the site.

I could propose tomorrow that my neighbour moves his fence over 15 feet so I can put in a wicked hot tub. If he doesn't like my proposal, I can't just say "the site has been chosen".

[saillias]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't know about 'pointless'. They put out a proposal that a piece of city-owned land would be the site.

I could propose tomorrow that my neighbour moves his fence over 15 feet so I can put in a wicked hot tub. If he doesn't like my proposal, I can't just say "the site has been chosen".

"What do you mean no? There's no plan B, and I spent 5 years determining that this is the only location that fits my needs."

[TX_Flame]

Originally Posted by Tyler

It's not a good spot. Otherwise something would already be built there. You're simply wrong.

Well, by that reasoning there would be no good spots, since the good spots are already taken by definition. Tearing down an ultra valuable piece of real estate to build an arena/stadium would be far from ideal as well. One needs to assess the disadvantages of each available location and figure out how to work around/remediate them. There are probably no completely problem free locations. You simply have to figure out what is easiest to fix and improve. A site that the team doesn't own could definitely be problematic as well.

[TX_Flame]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Debating about alternate site locations seems pointless since the site has been chosen. The site argument is so 2009.

As long as the team doesn't own the site or have an agreement to use it they would be foolish not to have any alternatives in mind, even if they won't admit it due to bargaining strategies.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by T@T

I'm back east on holiday's..did I miss the city approval announcement?

The site has to be cleaned up end of story and it's going to happen sooner than later so like it or not this project will go through. A lot of people won't be happy just like in Edmonton but after that arena opens up all will be forgotten in Edmonton as their downtown is already beginning it's transformation for the better and the arena isn't even open yet.

[sevenarms]

Originally Posted by upperloge77

regarding the shade concerns and not having symmetrical stands in the fieldhouse, why wouldn't they dig down and put the bowl underground like the new stadiums in winnipeg and regina? keeps the overall height of the build down, and if you're digging up all the dirt to re-mediate the land, why bother putting it back after it's cleaned so you build on top of it? or would that be a water table issue etc etc?

Probably a flooding issue.

[bax]

Originally Posted by T@T

I'm amazed people seem to think that the other side of Deerfoot is another country or something



Yeah, let's build it where there's no room, brutal costs and no roadways to get in or out.



Firepark might not suit you..but it is a better spot for a project this size, way cheaper and it is only 5 minutes from downtown, hotels/restaurants could go up with ease and they could service airport traffic as well. Revitalization shouldn't begin and end with the downtown core.



But by all means support the turd that Ken King wants.

If you actually believe that Firepark is a better location than West Village then you have me at a loss for words.

[ScorchyScorch]

With the vague/general amount of detail produced for the project at the announcement, I just keep wondering how they couldn't have unravelled this idea a year+ ago. Especially when you're talking 2 years before shovels are in the ground. The research and phone calls required to come up with this proposed "idea" (not including any actual design details) could've been done in a couple months you'd think, as opposed to the couple years its taken. I'm sure there is far, far more going on behind the scenes including the arena design itself, but if they were set on this area from the outset then a general proposal like this could've been made ages ago. Holding off as long as they did, I would've thought that we'd have much more detail released to get their best chance at selling the public on their plan. Not sure why they didn't wait a little while longer to include this state of the art arena design from the architects with "pretty pictures" and a virtual walk through to really try and hit it home.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't know about 'pointless'. They put out a proposal that a piece of city-owned land would be the site.

I could propose tomorrow that my neighbour moves his fence over 15 feet so I can put in a wicked hot tub. If he doesn't like my proposal, I can't just say "the site has been chosen".

Right, but that would be a matter for you and your neighbor to discuss and negotiate. Would you be really interested in going to your community's facebook gossip page to see if the neighbors had any thoughts on the pros and cons of alternate places you could put your wicked hot tub? Or would you try and work things out with your neighbor?

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by D as in David

I'm not sure that some posters understand that the $240M is just the starting point for the CRL amount. As far as we can tell from the presentation, that amount is only to go towards constructing the event centre. In order for there to be any development by other developers, the city will first have to install infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc.) like they did in the East Village. What that amount is, I don't know but I would guess maybe $150M to $300M if you look at the East Village's costs. And that doesn't include rerouting Bow Trail, which I feel is a necessity for this project (for reasons myself and others have already posted earlier.

On top of that, more government funding will be required for the creosote remediation (which is unclear whether the city could use CRL funding for that).

Further to the question of costs needed to re-develop the West Village, I came across this old Herald article http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-...e-flames-arena which indicates the City already has done a ballpark estimate.

The city’s own 2010 West Village blueprint proposed office towers and housing for 12,000 people. Readying the area for development was initially estimated at $300 million to $400 million, mainly for rerouting roads and cleaning soil contaminated by a chemical plant.

Given that the event centre would take up a lot (looks to be at least a third) of the area to be re-developed, the costs should be reduced somewhat - hard to say how much, though.

“If they proposed West Village, they’d be nuts,” policy analyst Josh White wrote to his colleagues in January 2013. “We told them two years ago the challenge with this site … The business case only makes sense if you can fully build it out at very high density. An arena sucks up a huge (piece) of land, leaving a lot less to pay back a CRL (community revitalization levy).”

In another e-mail, White suggested West Village shouldn’t be opened up for at least a decade, lest it “cannibalize market demand” for East Village.

This is the part that speaks to me as to why I've had such a reaction of disappointment to a project I was eagerly anticipating. I'm completely behind a new arena and stadium and I thought the opportunity of putting it in the West Village could lead to a phenomenal "transformation" of this area. Ken King's own comments have led us to believe that it would be so. The WV area comes with a lot of unique opportunities and constraints that have already been outlined but it is also a significant parcel of land as it is situated at one of the major entrances into downtown and should, therefore, be developed as a Calgary showpiece.

To be honest, the argument that since we haven't fixed this area in 70 years, we have to do it now (with the implication that it will, otherwise, never get done), drives me a bit nuts. The city has a plan for this area that it can move forward with when and if it makes sense to the city and as long as the the creosote is currently contained or can be contained relatively inexpensively. As the city already communicated to the Flames, development of WV will challenge the economic viability of the EV if started too early. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Flames to present something that is better than what the city has planned, including some preliminary financial analysis which takes into account how they will overcome an even higher density requirement than the city's own business case outlines. My point being, that if a developer is coming in and asking the city to significantly alter their own development plan, you should be prepared and come in with a better plan. God knows, they've had the time. This proposal is happening on the Flames timeline, not the city's. Therefore, it is the Flames' responsibility to have done their due diligence in putting forward a comprehensive vision for the whole area.

Maybe the due diligence has been done and they're just not ready to share it at this point in the process. I believe, and maybe unfairly, that is more due to the incompetence of Ken King in the matters of property development. It is hard for us to know at this point as he does not have a track record for us to evaluate at this point.

In contrast to the reputation he has of being a good salesman, he has been guilty of over-promising and under-delivering both on timeline and in vision.
Previously, he had communicated the repeated delays were due to making sure that this was presented until all the "i's were dotted and the t's were crossed" (although, I can't confirm this as I believe these come from second hand accounts of people attending STH events). What we saw from him this week was far from being detailed, a point he himself made. I've previously posted that I am less than impressed with the renderings but that I'll wait to see what the final renderings of the complex look like. What I don't like, is how they've seemingly ignored a lot of newer best practices in urban development. I'm hopeful that the CMLC will ultimately be the lead in this project and am confident in their capabilities.

Frankly, I find KK's used car salesman-like, "you'd be an idiot not to do this" or "you don't have a vision for this city if you disagree with this" approach very off-putting. People on this forum like to throw around the "thinks he's the smartest person in the room" expression a lot - it's one I've never been particularly fond of - but I can't help feeling this way about KK after listening to him this week. In today's world, salesmen like this make you want to take your business elsewhere. In this case, unfortunately, the Flames are the only business in town. In the end, you may end up having to do business with them but you're going to feel pretty disgusted afterwards. I don't want to end up feeling this way about the Flames organization.

Prior to this week's presentation, I've never really had much of an opinion of KK either way, but my fear is that his approach will have a very polarizing effect on what appears to be shaping up as a contentious and lengthy debate about a project many of us want to see become a resounding success.

I've never had any personal interactions with any of the Flames owners but, on the whole, I believe that they are civic minded and have an intention to make this city better. It's very possible I'm putting my frustration on the wrong individual but that's just the way I see it so far.

tl;dr - a lot of venting, about KK, in particular.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Right, but that would be a matter for you and your neighbor to discuss and negotiate. Would you be really interested in going to your community's facebook gossip page to see if the neighbors had any thoughts on the pros and cons of alternate places you could put your wicked hot tub? Or would you try and work things out with your neighbor?

I don't know if I'd be interested in going to the gossip page since I'd be more worried about how many boxes of rubbers I'd need to deal with all the sex I'd be getting in that sweet new hot tub!

Anyway, forgetting my own stupid analogy... the point was that the site of the new Flames rink isn't set in stone. It's not set in stone that there will be a football stadium, fieldhouse, firehouse, or flophouse attached to it either.

It's not pointless to discuss it on a discussion board about the Flames. Well, it might be pointless since we ain't making no decisions and we're just anonymously blabbering on the internet, but still, it's a valid discussion in this forum. IMOSHM

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by T@T

I'm amazed people seem to think that the other side of Deerfoot is another country or something

Yeah, let's build it where there's no room, brutal costs and no roadways to get in or out.

Firepark might not suit you..but it is a better spot for a project this size, way cheaper and it is only 5 minutes from downtown, hotels/restaurants could go up with ease and they could service airport traffic as well. Revitalization shouldn't begin and end with the downtown core.

But by all means support the turd that Ken King wants.

Originally Posted by Tyler

It's not a good spot. Otherwise something would already be built there. You're simply wrong.

I agree with T@T here. Firepark itself is actually a good site for something like this. Make TOD opportunity and fits all the access criteria along with still being a central location. However, the area would always be business centric, meaning there wouldn't be much of pedestrian life activity around it at all times. The West Village location has much more potential and is more suited for this type of project.

Besides, that's gonna be the location of the future +65,000 NFL stadium.

[johnnybegaudreau]

Incoming TL/DR rant:
People who complain about the people complaining about the lack of official renderings and pretty pictures. LOL

Here's my problem. Let's say that KK scrapped everything 3 years ago when the Flames bought the majority share in the Stamps. Let's say they threw all their designs out the window and started over from scratch. That still leaves them with 3 years minus the distractions of the flood and the various business aspects of running the organizations to meet with architects, meet with designers, and have plans/designs drawn up. How do you have concrete prices without concrete architectual plans? These plans should be fairly concrete and conceptual and be pretty much what it would look like when it's finished by now. Colour of the building not withstanding. There should be no ifs ands or buts about it.

You're pitching me a 900m dollar thing and you're gonna tell me well this is just a "concept" of what it could look like??? Excuse me, but No. It doesn't work like that anywhere else in the business world. I know what I'm buying. I want to see what I'm buying and I want to know what I'm buying into. When you go to purchase a house, you meet with the designers and select a base floorplan & architectural design from a book of their approved designs. Then you chose colors, and maybe you move a interior wall or change a bathroom location, etc. these designs and specifications are all done to the developers codes and the guidelines for the area. Sure you can move things around and make lots of changes if you wanna spend more money. Like if you back onto a park your rear fittings have to be done to certain specifications to match the front of the house (this is similar to the roof having to tilt towards the river which is a bylaw) But ultimately the overall shape, and look and architecture of the house doesn't change that much from the initial sit down phase to the final product. You know what you're getting and you know what it will look like when it's done. I'm not asking for a virtual tour but I should see the kind of seats stamps fans gonna sit on. I should see what the proposed stadia will look like, etc.

So if this is the case these are just "well it could sorta kinda look like this" designs then KK has done a terrible sales job. And let's be honest that's what this is here. The Flames CSEC haven't put any of their own money into this. They're simply waiting for their handout of public money and approval to spend that money and that disgusts me. I have a friend who was in an URBAN design class and the Professor was approached by the Flames to use the WV site and an arena stadia complex design as a project for the students for extra credit so he did. A few kids submitted their designs. How much do you wanna bet those design concepts were done for free by engineering students at UofC as part of a class project and definitely are not done by pros at all.

I'm sorry but if Flames CSEC want this that badly then they have grossly underdelivered. I have no "fatih" in them being able to pull this together considering it took them 3 years just to announce this and then the designs and concepts aren't even concrete. And this BS about there is no PLAN B well then why are the concepts not -EXACTLY- what you want and what it would look like? If there's no plan b there's no reason that these shoudln't be the professional renderings of what it will be end of story. Here's what we want. Here's what it costs, here's what it looks like, do you support this or not? If they had done that I'd be on board. Instead I'm wondering well i sure hope the stadium seats look better than those cheap things in the renderings. Oh boy can that thing even seat 30,000 stamps fans? Man that arena I dunno how are Flames games gonna be in a shared venue? These are questions i shouldn't have if you want me essentialy to buy a part of or into the product youre selling. That doesn't even begin to describe the problems with the actual area concepts and the lack of infrastcuture thought.

This is not the way you engage the public on somehting that is gonna cost tax payer upwards of 400m dollars. Quite probably 1 billion at mininum when all is said and done.

[CliffFletcher]

“We told them two years ago the challenge with this site … The business case only makes sense if you can fully build it out at very high density. An arena sucks up a huge (piece) of land, leaving a lot less to pay back a CRL (community revitalization levy).”

This is what the Flames need to address. They can't just say 'well, the City is going to have to develop this land anyway, so we're not asking to do anything special.' They most certainly are asking the City to do something special. They're asking the city to raise a $250 million levy far sooner than the City intended to, and putting a sports complex in the space will mean less return (or a much longer return period) on that levy. The Flames have to provide some kind of incentive or compensation to the City for accepting a much less attractive West Village plan, in timing and the return on investment, than the City's own studies recommended.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

I wish you well on your separate, independent $890M development in Harvest Hills. Start a thread for it! Or maybe just try and enjoy our holidays instead.

What? Not sure what's worst, completely missing the point or the guy who gave you thanks

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I don't know about 'pointless'. They put out a proposal that a piece of city-owned land would be the site.

I could propose tomorrow that my neighbour moves his fence over 15 feet so I can put in a wicked hot tub. If he doesn't like my proposal, I can't just say "the site has been chosen".

As the City mentioned today, there really hasn't been a formal proposal made to the City. Meetings with a few elected officials presenting the idea only. This is an important fact to remember.

City's response to the concept unveiling:
http://bit.ly/1PEzG7a

This thing you couldn't call even half baked because it's not even really in the oven yet...

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Bunk

As the City mentioned today, there really hasn't been a formal proposal made to the City. Meetings with a few elected officials presenting the idea only. This is an important fact to remember.

City's response to the concept unveiling:
http://bit.ly/1PEzG7a

This thing you couldn't call even half baked because it's not even really in the oven yet...

Wow, so yeah we're not even close to watching a game in a new arena. So if we're looking at worst case scenario, it could boil down to...

2 - 3 years negotiating and finalizing/approving the project
2 years cleanup
2 - 3 years building the arena

So this could conceivably take 8 years until we're sitting in the new arena if things drag out enough?