[News] CalgaryNEXT Announcement. New arena details emerge.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Cappy

WOW, keep telling yourself that.

well I have 70 years of history to back me up and you have well, what exactly

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by dino7c

well I have 70 years of history to back me up and you have well, what exactly

And all the parking lots DT will NEVER be developed... just empy land always being empty. THANK GOD THE GRACIOUS AND GENEROUS CALGARY FLAMES ARE WILLING TO DO SOMETHING>

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Oh for **** sakes Resolute, come on.

You ask for confirmation but you and the boosters on this site continue to rely on "development" "prestige"

Not sure when I personally relied on the "prestige" argument, but no biggie. As far as "development" goes, I'm not going to go dino7c about it, but at the same time, the land has been an underutilized eyesore for over half a century now. If this proposal kickstarts cleanup and development of the area, then that is a win for the city.

But my point in response to HotHotHeat (and to others on this front) is to point out that people in opposition are relying on assumptions to spin the costs to the city in the worst possible light. We all know the Flames would love to have the city front those costs - there are some interesting and potentially good reasons for that in addition to the purely selfish ones - but it is disingenuous to just assume that will be the case when King did state outright that conventional funding is an option. So stop pretending there is only one direction that particular aspect of the funding can go.

[Benched]

Originally Posted by 442scotty

In the news thread I certainly like Kings point about the new 200 mil library to come... Personally if there ever was a waste of 200 Mil this is it... 200 Mil to serve at best a couple of hundred regular locals ...now that's money poorly spent... I know I will get flack or saying it but I don't care... Its just my opinion and shared by many others I suspect

was trying to keep an open mind until you said the bolded.

*commence eyeroll*

[Ace]

Originally Posted by hockey.modern

I wonder if the Flames are trying to go for something similar to Staples Center which holds 18,181.

If they release a mock up like this, they would have way more support. It's way to vague right now.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by dino7c

they are also putting in 200M and generating the majority of the ticket tax

Ok....but your point is that this is being skewed by the media to make it seem that public money is being given to athletes and businessman. Really its mostly going to businessmen and not athletes, but that's exactly what is happening. It's not a smear job, it's the truth. And the Flames by far benefit from this more than anyone else. Do other parties benefit? Sure, but no one benefits more than the Flames, by a very large margin.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by Cappy

There will be development without a stadium! More development! The location of the stadium is isolating.

But there hasn't been any in 70 years without this project, so why would there be now without this project?

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by Ace

If they release a mock up like this, they would have way more support. It's way to vague right now.

As they said, they are still down to 2 set ups so this was a placeholder.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Wait, what?

I'd say the taxpayers in the City of Calgary have final say in this matter.

Cappy said he was glad I had no say in the matter. I was equally agreeing with him.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Does your $450m, include the $250m ticket levy? That's users of the facility, not CSE. Opportunity cost? hahahah, that's some smoke and mirrors.


LOL, did you put alot into that?

No it is not. A $10 ticket tax is effectively $10/ticket the Flames will have to take out of their future pockets to repay the lender. It's not like it'll be $10 on top of what supply and demand will dictate the price to be. The price will be the price. The Flames will then have to forgoe $10 of that price and give it to someone else instead of themselves. Once again, it's not like the cost of tickets will be $10 cheaper if there were no ticket tax.

The burden of the ticket tax falls on the Flames. They are effectively borrowing money against their future cash flows.

[The Ditch]

Did King actually imply that a public library was a waste of money and that a field house would be more useful?

[Funkhouser]

Originally Posted by 442scotty

In the news thread I certainly like Kings point about the new 200 mil library to come... Personally if there ever was a waste of 200 Mil this is it... 200 Mil to serve at best a couple of hundred regular locals ...now that's money poorly spent... I know I will get flack or saying it but I don't care... Its just my opinion and shared by many others I suspect

The Library is a true public resource that seeks to democratize knowledge across the entire population...the Library sees more than 5M annual visits. Opposite of popular assumptions, Library visits are actually increasing despite the reduction in physical book distribution.

I would rather see my funds going to a Library than a private sports facility that costs me hundreds to enter. I love the Flames but don't see how this funding can be justified from the public purse.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

But there hasn't been any in 70 years without this project, so why would there be now without this project?

For the same reason there wasn't any development for decades in the East Village, then there was once it became economically feasible and desirable.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

But there hasn't been any in 70 years without this project, so why would there be now without this project?

On this front, I think you and dino, and Cappy and Parallax, are arguing pretty much in parallel to each other.

The fact that nothing's been done in decades does not preclude something being done. And sometimes, all you need is for someone to 'break the seal', so to speak. So if various levels of government indicate potential willingess to clean this area up for the Flames, other groups may suddenly come along. We tax payers are probably still paying nine figures either way, but it just has to be done at some point.

OTOH, they do need to realize that when nothing happens for 60-70 years, the odds of something suddenly happening are remote. The Flames seem to be trying to take advantage of that to drive support for their plans.

So in the end, something else could come along (CMLC could, of course, manage all of this itself), but the odds of that happening in the near to medium term are remote.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

No it is not. A $10 ticket tax is effectively $10/ticket the Flames will have to take out of their future pockets to repay the lender. It's not like it'll be $10 on top of what supply and demand will dictate the price to be. The price will be the price. The Flames will then have to forgoe $10 of that price and give it to someone else instead of themselves. Once again, it's not like the cost of tickets will be $10 cheaper if there were no ticket tax.

The burden of the ticket tax falls on the Flames. They are effectively borrowing money against their future cash flows.

Not true because the price of tickets are not at the clearing price for equilibrium. If they were there wouldn't be a secondary market for scalpers because the tickets would be set at the market price.

In this sense where demand for tickets exceeds supply at the current price then you can confidently assume that the flames well simply increase ticket prices by the tax value with no associative reduction along the demand curve.

Fundamentally what the tax doors is to remove consumer surplus and transfer that benefit to the flames.

[Southside]

Originally Posted by The Ditch

Did King actually imply that a public library was a waste of money and that a field house would be more useful?

Not at all. He was making the point that both are needed and add to the wealth of the city while they may not serve all in the city.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Not sure when I personally relied on the "prestige" argument, but no biggie. As far as "development" goes, I'm not going to go dino7c about it, but at the same time, the land has been an underutilized eyesore for over half a century now. If this proposal kickstarts cleanup and development of the area, then that is a win for the city.

But my point in response to HotHotHeat (and to others on this front) is to point out that people in opposition are relying on assumptions to spin the costs to the city in the worst possible light. We all know the Flames would love to have the city front those costs - there are some interesting and potentially good reasons for that in addition to the purely selfish ones - but it is disingenuous to just assume that will be the case when King did state outright that conventional funding is an option. So stop pretending there is only one direction that particular aspect of the funding can go.

I don't think people do. It was very clear to me that the particular funding slide was trying to spin it such that it shows that the ticket tax is somehow funded by the users of the facility - making it far more palpable to the general public than just "City of Calgary - to be repaid with Ticket Levy".

Same with the CRL portion. Much better to say that the developers of the community will pay for it, rather than "City of Calgary - to be repaid with CRL". And even then, it's very clear that the public's understanding of what CRL actually is is really shoddy.

Then you have all the people that believe a "city asset" is a good thing. It's an AWFUL thing for an asset like this. Imagine possible repairs, possible liabilities. These massive facilities generally only break even (the saddledome earned 1.5M in 2010, for example), and are generally worthless upon their decommissioning.

Basically, I suspect that you understand the implications, but don't be so quick to assume the general public does.

I also understand that the presentation was a starting point for negotiations, but it was actually quite insulting to me that they would open with such a lowball.

[Frequitude]

For the record, I am changing my opinion on a CRL. After researching it more I do believe it falls into the bucket of "using public funds".

But not in the straight handout sense. It is more of an investment of public funds. Effectively, the city is giving up $250M of future property tax revenues to bring forward property tax revenues that would be even further down the road.

It's not wrong to assume that the arena will spur development and therefore generate more tax revenue sooner. The key is whether or not the present value of that accelerated tax revenue exceeds $250M. That would determine if it is a positive investment of public funds.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by Cappy

The speculation that this will bring economic benefits to the surrounding area has been resolutely debunked on so many occasions

http://economics.umbc.edu/files/2014/09/wp_03_103.pdf

From the Summary portion of the report you linked:

"If the stadium or arena has effects on the local economy, one might think that those effects would appear most obviously in the vicinity of the facility. Proponents of stadium and arena led growth typically contend that restaurants, bars, and hotels in the area will expand their business as fans patronize the establishments before and after the game. If this argument is correct, then property values and rents should rise as the present value of the new stream of profits is capitalized into property values. On the other hand, property values may fall as the presence of rowdy, drunken fans in the neighborhood makes it a less pleasant place to live or operate a business.

The results suggest that property values are slightly higher in the first ring, with a diameter of a half mile."

Is that not area exactly in the CRL area? I would think that it shows the area will be beneficial to that area because it is confined to just the west village area (guessing maybe 2km^2).

I think the study goes more to dissuade or poo poo areas like Detroit where they think the area will raise property value and bring jobs. In this case you are just talking about a smaller area all within that first ring where there was a positive from the arena. I may be reading it wrong, but that is how I interpreted it.

[The Ditch]

Originally Posted by Southside

Not at all. He was making the point that both are needed and add to the wealth of the city while they may not serve all in the city.

I fail to see how a football stadium that the public can only use when CSE is not (stamps or flames playing or concerts) is really adding much wealth. It certainly serves significantly less people than a public library does.