Flames to announce plans to announce arena plans in the... future...

[Frequitude]

Oh ya. My "complaint" is most definitely a first world problem.

[herashak]

A covered stadium with a heated concourse like Winnipeg or like reginas new one is fine imo. Obviously I would like a retractable roof but anything is better than McMahon.

I was at the game yesterday and if the concourse was heated so my toes could warm up for the second half I'd be happy.

[Flash Walken]

Calgary makes sense as an MLS city because of the extreme wealth of some of its citizens.

All things being equal, that is probably the decisive factor involved in expansion.

[Vulcan]

No chance the NFL comes to Calgary. It's a TV run business and Calgary wouldn't add to their TV audience. Butts in the seats is secondary.

Another thing I'd like is to have a rundown away fan section. I don't know how they arrange this in the UK but it sounds good especially if we can follow the Selhurst Park Stadium's, home of Crystal Palace, thinking. Maybe preserve part of McMahon for the away fans.

James Creedy 7 months ago

The most atmospheric and noisy stadium in the Premier League. Home to the incredible Crystal Palace Football Club! Away fans are housed in the run-down Arthur Wait Stand, next to the family section. If you are buying tickets in the home section you'll get the best atmosphere in the Holmesdale Lower Tier, the nicest hospitality in The Main Stand, and arguably the best view in the Holmesdale Upper Tier.

https://plus.google.com/113673493976...ut?gl=ca&hl=en

[lvsteven]

Originally Posted by JBR

There is a higher probability of me quarterbacking a NFL team to a Super Bowl victory than a team coming to Calgary.

LA, San Antonio(?), London and likely several other places would be considered before Calgary. IMO, Toronto is a big long shot as it is.

Let's see.
A 65,000 seat arena.
8 home games.
520,000 seats to sell a year.

The population does not support it. Even an affluent population it doesn't matter. The entertainment dollar from September - January already is married to the flames.
The cfl season ends and doesn't compete with the NHL as much as NFL would.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by lvsteven

Let's see.
A 65,000 seat arena.
8 home games.
520,000 seats to sell a year.

The population does not support it. Even an affluent population it doesn't matter. The entertainment dollar from September - January already is married to the flames.
The cfl season ends and doesn't compete with the NHL as much as NFL would.

While I feel you are totally correct in saying Calgary simply couldn't support it, your calculation of how many seats there are multiplied by 8 makes 0 sense what so ever as a supporting fact.

You simply calculated how many seats there were to sell per season. What does that mean. The Flames have to sell more seats than that a season. What's the price point they need? Why is 1.2M incapable of buying 520K seats a year. Not saying your wrong, just struggling to connect your dots.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

No chance the NFL comes to Calgary. It's a TV run business and Calgary wouldn't add to their TV audience. Butts in the seats is secondary.

Another thing I'd like is to have a rundown away fan section. I don't know how they arrange this in the UK but it sounds good especially if we can follow the Selhurst Park Stadium's, home of Crystal Palace, thinking. Maybe preserve part of McMahon for the away fans.



https://plus.google.com/113673493976...ut?gl=ca&hl=en

All grounds across Europe have an away section somewhere in them. They can be anywhere in the ground, and just have to meet a certain % of the capacity depending on the competition.

There's no need for it here since away fans don't travel in packs like they do in Europe, England in particular. Literally thousands will travel across the country to take in these matches, and generally you have to be a season ticket holder to come even close to obtaining away tickets. The away club goes as far as buying the entire away block from the home side and then sells them to their own base - there isn't near this demand for away fans here except for the Saskatchewan fans who seem to congregate anyways. Further, there really isn't the animosity between fans to the degree that you can find in Europe. No need to separate them.

[getbak]

Here's the story from the Herald: http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-...e-flames-arena

[Tinordi]

An Olympic bid isn't happening, a World Cup bid isn't happening, there's no other sources of public money coming in besides trying to build pressure through articles like this.

What the Flames are trying to do is to appear that they are the reasonable party between them and the city. "Hey we only want to revitalize the the West Village, it would come with significant potential *cough* benefits (to us), all we're looking for here is a partner. Surely the city can be a partner and give us land for free and without equity." Sounds 'reasonable' right?

[burn_this_city]

Sounds like this is going to be a long drawn out process if they are trying to secure public funds. I really don't like the West Village from an access perspective, it would be a traffic nightmare on Crowchild before and after every game.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

An Olympic bid isn't happening, a World Cup bid isn't happening, there's no other sources of public money coming in besides trying to build pressure through articles like this.

What the Flames are trying to do is to appear that they are the reasonable party between them and the city. "Hey we only want to revitalize the the West Village, it would come with significant potential *cough* benefits (to us), all we're looking for here is a partner. Surely the city can be a partner and give us land for free and without equity." Sounds 'reasonable' right?

I believe the city has already come out and said that there could be something worked out to vend the land in for free or something? Just no public dollars directly. So it is reasonable

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by heep223

I believe the city has already come out and said that there could be something worked out to vend the land in for free or something? Just no public dollars directly. So it is reasonable

It is not reasonable to transfer significant value in "free" land without getting serious equity in the project.

Would you give me your house if I promised to really fix it up, subdivide it and then run a successful business out of it and sell the new lots?

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

It is not reasonable to transfer significant value in "free" land without getting serious equity in the project.

Would you give me your house if I promised to really fix it up, subdivide it and then run a successful business out of it and sell the new lots?

I dunno. Are you going to promise me significant tax revenues from those improvements? The potential tax windfall from a billion dollar project is pretty substantial to the city. Considering the potential investment is a swap of lands, the return seems to be pretty good for the City. Unless you s me to think the City can dig up a billion dollars to create a similar project.

[Table 5]

That article suggests to me that the Flames internally have an idea of what they'd like, but there's absolutely no realistic plan or agreement yet to make it happen. They're expecting some sort of special deal from the City, but haven't even told the City what they'd like to happen or how they plan to pull it off. And they clearly want some sort of public land or money, otherwise they wouldn't get guys like Burke to tell everyone how important an arena is....they'd just go ahead and build it on their own dime.

So after 7 years, that's it? This arena is going about as smoothly as the Oilers rebuild.

[Bigtime]

Hmm, if they do make a go of it in the West Village then the only course of action is a Santiago Calatrava designed "Peace Bridge v2.0" running from Sunalta LRT station to the new arena.

[CliffFletcher]

Yeah, it's looking like the city and Flames are at an impasse over funding. This is gonna get ugly.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Um we're going to have the 2 nicest arena's in North America in 4 or 5 years.

I'm sure the hockey arena will be up there, but let's not pretend the football stadium will even come close to what you get in the NFL. Unless there's some other arena you are talking about...

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by New Era

I dunno. Are you going to promise me significant tax revenues from those improvements? The potential tax windfall from a billion dollar project is pretty substantial to the city. Considering the potential investment is a swap of lands, the return seems to be pretty good for the City. Unless you s me to think the City can dig up a billion dollars to create a similar project.

Did you read the article? The city would get much more tax revenues if the West Village is developed as a residential and commercial zone with 12,000 residents, than they would from a hockey arena.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Did you read the article? The city would get much more tax revenues if the West Village is developed as a residential and commercial zone with 12,000 residents, than they would from a hockey arena.

As one of our resident posters states in the article (at least I assume it's our resident poster) the tax base would be much better if the land was sold to developers and development charges placed on residential development. The presence of a giant arena removes significant square footage for commercial and residential property ruining the business case.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Public opposition to any money will be extremely staunch so it's gonna be a mighty difficult sell for the Flames to get money. Fans can hate PSLs all they want but Calgary is a rich city so I can certainly see those being the end game after trying to get public money.