[News Roundup] CSEC/City arena deal UPDATED: Third Party Facilitator

[Flames0910]

edit: nm

[burn_this_city]

Lumber is another cost way out to lunch, its still over $1,100. This is why I don't buy any of the climate change noise. All their base commodities have gone parabolic in the last 12 months.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by calf

Not only that, but there would be much less of a PR battle and finger pointing if they just simply said "prices of our key materials are skyrocketing - we're pressing pause until we have greater certainty and control over our costs".

Exactly! I couldnt have said it better myself!

"The deal is fine, but the costs have spiraled out of control, we're going to slap the pause button n this baby and re-evaluate next year. The fundamentals are set, we'll look at the new circumstances and go from there. Go Flames Go. Go Calgary Go."

That makes so much more sense, no posturing or BS required and everybody is still 100% 'Friends On.'

As opposed to this childish tantrum stratagem.

We should propose to be the City and CESC's media relations team.

[Lonestar]

Very true. For someone that lives outside the market and gets news about the subject mostly through CP, it seems like after 10 years of negotiations and multiple sites/funding possibilities being discussed that neither side wanted to be the one with fingers pointed their direction when the agreement went south.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

4/6 I did not support that deal.

Since I was elected Mayor, Administration & my office have been working with CSEC to mitigate any additional costs. Two costs were identified: climate mitigation of around $4m and road/sidewalk right of way issues of $12.1m.

OK. Might be a silly question. Why were these issues not identified when they made the final deal in July 2021?

They were identified during the standard design review process after the initial plans were submitted in August.

Here's the document that accompanied the application when it went in front of the Planning Commission in November: https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....umentId=186207

On 28 July 2021, Council approved C2021-1164 with Recommendation 7 as follows:

7. Direct Administration to steward the development permit for the Event Centre through the standard process for projects of this magnitude, including but not limited to: application with Corporate Planning Applications Group (CPAG), detailed team review (DTR) comments, presentation to Urban Design Review Panel, circulation, and decision from Calgary Planning Commission.

Development and Site Design
Design Progression

Following Administration’s review of the application, a number improvements were made to the proposed building and site design, including:

• the inclusion of solar photovoltaic equipment;
• increased publicly accessible bicycle parking, both on-site and off-site;
• the inclusion of e-scooter parking, on-site;
• refinements to the building’s street interface and landscaping;
• increased active use frontage;
• increased glazing and permeability along the north and east facades;
• measures to reduce the visual impact of the mass, including refinement of the ‘ribbon’ feature;
• improved parkade screening; and
• measures to add interest to large wall areas.

This document has the comments from the Urban Design Review Panel and responses from the design team: https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....umentId=186212



As I understand it, these sort of things are pretty common for any development application. The first application that's submitted will almost-certainly not be approved as-is, but you can't really predict what comments will be received until it's put out in front of the public.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by getbak

They were identified during the standard design review process after the initial plans were submitted in August.

Here's the document that accompanied the application when it went in front of the Planning Commission in November: https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....umentId=186207





This document has the comments from the Urban Design Review Panel and responses from the design team: https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....umentId=186212



As I understand it, these sort of things are pretty common for any development application. The first application that's submitted will almost-certainly not be approved as-is, but you can't really predict what comments will be received until it's put out in front of the public.

Thank-you for the response.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by calf

Not only that, but there would be much less of a PR battle and finger pointing if they just simply said "prices of our key materials are skyrocketing - we're pressing pause until we have greater certainty and control over our costs".

I wonder if this would have been handled differently with Davison instead of Gondek?

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Yedlin is a pretty well known pro-business advocate - hence her Chamber of Commerce position. I think it's fair to say she has written favoably about Edwards over the years, and they've been together on a number of events.

Yedlin's husband, Martin Molyneaux is a longtime business associate of Murray Edwards through FirstEnergy Corp.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I think Carter when using words like "boasting" is echoing what the councillors stated in this press conference Dec 22. Not me. LOL.

Councillor. Single. One used that term, and he was speaking to commentary from the architect on the project, and conflating that the feeling of all of CSEC. Those comments should not have been made unless they had come directly from the head of CSEC. That's a pretty big claim to make and may explain why there is some acrimony between the parties? I think the language should have been a little less absolute here, and the Councilor should have been much less candid in his commentary, as he made a connection that maybe should not have been made. This was caught by the press in the room, so it likely should have been caught by the councilor before the comment and framed differently.

One thing that jumped out at me with the mayor's comments was the simplicity of the comments about the environmental component, distilling it down to "installation of film" which is pretty disingenuous. There is a lot more to this type of infrastructure than just installation of "film."

By the way, this is what the article is referring to from Calgary Planning Commission - when Cllr Wong asked about the climate change mitigation approach the project member from HOK answered this way: "The climate studies have been an important part of the overall design from the very beginning, from early concept and we’ve worked very hard."

Full answer at 17:14 including on-site renewable energy, district energy, etc.

The time given does not match up. Seems the 17:14 mark is related to some residential classification?

I will say this, based on the news conference with the mayor and the two council members, the information presented doesn't help their case. They reference the deal struck in July, but then mention a revised disclosure on the 15th of October, and then the election on the 18th of October as a deflection to their responsibility for that revised disclosure. By the sounds of it, it was this revised disclosure that sent things off the rails. One thing about requirements, they mean nothing until the full requirements are identified and opportunity for those requirements to be costed out. The revision may have fleshed out those requirements and had some surprises in them.

I think Carter is suggesting the idea that climate mitigation was some cost foisted upon the flames at the last minute belies the truth.

Or the revised document on the 15th was indeed a surprise as it provided greater detail of requirements than had been there in the past and it did have a larger ask than the Flames were expecting. There is nothing more detrimental to relationships between "partners" than coming to an agreement and then getting "nickle and dimed" for more costs than anticipated. I get the feeling this is SOP with CoC.

[Bunk]

Sorry: 7:14:00 roughly.

Again, if the flames didn't want to build the building as it was approved (including the conditions they agreed to), and they didn't want to take on the cost obligations as defined in the development permit, if they felt is was "insisted upon" or "last minute" they could have and should have a) not agreed to them in the first place in October when finalizing the DP and conditions; b) asked the approving authority, CPC to remove the condition in the DP codifying the requirements in November; c) if they still had buyers remorse, appealed the DP to SDAB to have it removed.

The climate elements are the culmination of a year of work, some bits are understood earlier, some later in the process. Even the solar component didn't have to be understood in terms of precise implementation until well after building approval and prior to occupancy. The project team said they wanted to seek a partner to cover the cost. The Mayor offered to help in seeking provincial and federal dollars to cover this cost. This piece feels like a big red herring, when the problem, orders of magnitude larger was the overall cost escalation and revenue risk on the other side in a post-covid world.

[Fuzz]

Kenney just blamed the city for last minute changes. That should help...

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Kenney just blamed the city for last minute changes. That should help...

Who cares at this point? Its dead and gone. The last minute changes were just an excuse. It seems irrelevant now.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Locke

Who cares at this point? Its dead and gone. The last minute changes were just an excuse. It seems irrelevant now.

Having the Premier point a finger at one party isn't helpful in the future, or for anyone.

[calgaryred]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Kenney just blamed the city for last minute changes. That should help...

Very Trumpish

Sent from my SM-A105M using Tapatalk

[Joborule]

Why is Kenny even commenting? The province shouldn't be giving any comment unless they're going to be involved in the process...

...Kenny gonna try to get involved in funding to boost Calgary numbers in polling?

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by fuzz

kenney just blamed the city for last minute changes. That should help...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1478503446714073088

[Ozy_Flame]

Wow. This was extremely inappropriate to comment on at all. What a putz.

He went on to say he met with CEO's of big companies and - this is me paraphrasing here - it will jeopardize private sector companies coming here because of the amenities he was selling them on.

[burn_this_city]

Why didn't Randy belly up to the bar and offer some assistance? Surely with overflowing resource revenues the province could cover a shortfall?

He's pretty dumb, he missed a golden opportunity to buy some love back from a city that majority thinks he's a failure.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Wow. This was extremely inappropriate to comment on at all. What a putz.

He went on to say he met with CEO's of big companies and - this is me paraphrasing here - it will jeopardize private sector companies coming here because of the amenities he was selling them on.

Perhaps he could have allocated $30M to an arena contingency fee if he's so dependent on this project, instead he used that up on his useless 'War Room' advertising to the same audience. But, I digress.

[Press Level]

Not a fan of Kenney, but he was asked the question and provided an answer that is in line with what a lot of other people (including many here) are saying. I'm not sure how that's "inappropriate."