CalgaryNEXT Discussion pt. 2

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The city's reports say that the city financing the "ticket tax" would cost the city $84 million.

Wouldn't the ticket tax pay for the initial 150 million plus interest, which is what I am guessing the 84 million is? Don't understand why it would cost the city. Or am I reading that wrong.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

The city says a full modernization of McMahon would cost $69 to $89 million.

What year would McMahon be modernized to? 1986-ish?

[Ozy_Flame]

West Village is still a good idea, it just needs a cleanup and, with no arena, we can have far more patience.

Wouldn't be opposed to having a sports district there though, even for amateur sports and athletic training.

[TurdFerguson]

happy the numbers and timeline are so big, it Leaves no real wiggle room and probably gets everyone on to plan b faster as opposed to negotiating off cagaryNext further.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by Robbob

Wouldn't the ticket tax pay for the initial 150 million plus interest, which is what I am guessing the 84 million is? Don't understand why it would cost the city. Or am I reading that wrong.

Yeah, I don't see how it could be $84 million, in particular if that tax could be used to cover principal and interest. I mean how can it cost the same as refurbishing McMahon?

[sureLoss]

Full report available here:

http://agendaminutes.calgary.ca/sire...a&itemid=43230

[hockey.modern]

Here is the statement from Nenshi:

http://calgarymayor.ca/stories/city-...rynext-project

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

Yeah, I don't see how it could be $84 million, in particular if that tax could be used to cover principal and interest. I mean how can it cost the same as refurbishing McMahon?

I have no idea how the city did the math, but there is a total cost listed for the city's portion, with and without the city funding the ticket tax. The difference between the two numbers is $84 million.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Boy, Murray Edwards is going to be upset when he wakes up in 7 hours.

If I knew where he lived, I'd wake him up now.

[Thunderball]

A few things that are particularly troubling:

A six year wait to commence construction is a total game changer and a project killer. No way they can proceed if it means Calgary may not be in a position to bid for the Olympics or World Cup 2026. The Saddledome would need tens of millions in upgrades and fixes to last that long too.

If the project is estimated at $1.8 billion, ignoring the facility, the necessary remediation, utilities upgrading and infrastructure updating for West Village in general seems to be in the $550 million range (plus interest for financing), which would be needed for any large scale re-purposing, not counting the public money that would be going into a required public amenity (or amenities) in the area to attract residents. Its a billion + dollar sink hole any way you cut it, and that is pretty disappointing.

The thought that McMahon is viable to any extent is alarming. I'd be very curious to see what $80-90 million can actually buy, because the deficiencies in the stadium are significant. $80-90 million buys a lot of lipstick for a pig, but its a 60 year old facility that was out of date when we hosted the Olympics. Its unsuitable for soccer, and unsuitable for evening events by virtue of location and field design. Its cavernous for university football, and far too spartan for any professional sport.

Would be shocked if Ken King survives this though.

[RedHot25]

Originally Posted by SofaProfessor

The easiest, cheapest way to get this done would just be to pick an edge of the city serviced by the C-Train and build a huge arena with a huge parking lot. Even if you have to extend the C-Train line you're still saving money and you've expanded public transit. Trying to shoehorn a new arena into the middle of a developed city is not easy and not easy is not cheap. Build me a nice arena that can be accessed by C-Train and I don't really care where you put it.

Ugh. Having lived in Ottawa and gone to a few games, this is not fun. Granted they didn't have a train there but they had a bazillion dedicated buses that for good parts of the ride had bus only lanes to drive in. Not a fun commute to and from a game, especially for people who lived at the complete opposite end of the arena...

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Robbob

Wouldn't the ticket tax pay for the initial 150 million plus interest, which is what I am guessing the 84 million is? Don't understand why it would cost the city. Or am I reading that wrong.

I think 84 million as a cost of borrowing for a 250 million dollar loan over 25 years seems pretty legitimate to me. Pretty cheap to be honest.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Robbob

Wouldn't the ticket tax pay for the initial 150 million plus interest, which is what I am guessing the 84 million is? Don't understand why it would cost the city. Or am I reading that wrong.

The 84 million would be interest from the original upfront payment. The report indicates that it was not determined who would front that cost.

[Ozy_Flame]

Not to mention asking Calgary's heavily-central downtown upscale crowd to head to the fringe of the city for a 7 o'clock game, including getting out of the core, would not be a good idea. Calgary's infrastructure is not developed enough make that an ideal situation.

Basically for Calgary, it's downtown, almost downtown, or bust.

[btimbit]

And if the city estimates 1.8B, it'll likely be closer to 4b

[PeteMoss]

You have to start to wonder about King's job security. This thing has just been embarrassment after embarrassment for the organization.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Sounds like it might be more cost effective to build a high speed train to the front door of Rogers Place in Edmonton.

[Lil Pedro]

This report shows how much of a moron KK is

[The Yen Man]

Kind of glad it's going to cost this much. What it means is, that's not going to be the location, which is fine by me. I've never liked that location for the arena. Not with how much remediation of the land was going to cost.

Lets hope the site location is closer to East Village. There's tons of land there, way better traffic and c train access, and no remediation costs. Ticks way more boxes than West Village, so not sure why Ken King was so adamant to have it in the west.

I suspect West Village is going to sit as is for another 50 years to be honest. No developer is going to touch that land with such a a massive clean up bill.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Lil Pedro

This report shows how much of a moron KK is

Unless CalgaryNEXT was intentionally set up as a flawed Plan A (knowing that the remediation was impossible to overcome) to lower resistance for a far more planned out than we are lead to believe Plan B involving a fully funded Arena just outside the Stampede Board's influence, and a new Stadium somewhere nearby that is majority public funding (like all the other new CFL stadia), I'd hope he has the good sense to resign.

I should add that I doubt he would be so Machiavellian.