[News] CalgaryNEXT Announcement. New arena details emerge.

[Stay Golden]

Great look. The multi sport platform is itelligent. Deliberately selecting a known contaminated location that will take an uncertain time to clense. Huh color me confused.
That will cost a reported estimated addition amount between 50-200m before they can even build. Then why choose the location.
For Billionaires to propose a 900m project and only want to cover 200-300m of it. That is pretty arrogant.
Well unless Edwards strategy is drag this process out for years then i guess it could be seen as intelligent. The city and the province are not going to cough up a combined 400-600m between them and Edwards and KKing are well aware of that.
They know the province and the city at best might rub out 200m combined. So why this charade come on we are not a city of gullible idiots.
So what is this proposal really. Is it fluff ?
Who better knows the long long process that is involved with an environmental clean up than an O&G man.
If Edwards really wants to break ground come in with a respectful propasal to the city and the province where right out of the gate they are commiting to 700m out of a 900m price tag.
Pick a location that you know won't or has the high probability of being tied up in environmental limbo for years.
I personally see this as a slick state of the art design that would be incredible to see on the city landscape but sadly if the Flames don't come way up on their end. This won't be built for maybe 10 more years. I see the Flames just re signing short term extended leases and staying in the Saddledome. Meanwhile Creosole removal or how ever it is spelt becomes just another major kink in this proposal.
Love to see it built. Unfortunately Gios career will likely be over by the time this gets built.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by T@T

Bad enough there's not enough room to park any concert goers but now your going to tell 4 people who spent $800.00 for a concert they can't park because there's a running track meet going on?

Faster this whole project gets destroyed the better, already the rest of Canada are laughing their asses off at the ugly shinguard looking thing with no parking.

Fire King and start over.

You guys are all aware there is virtually no parking at NHL rinks in Vancouver, Edmonton (new), Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal.
Right?

But yeah, lots in Ottawa.

[Zach]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

You guys are all aware there is virtually no parking at NHL rinks in Vancouver, Edmonton (new), Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal.
Right?

But yeah, lots in Ottawa.

skytrain station right beside rogers arena. also people seem to not care to pay the $20 for parking beside the arena for some reason.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Zach

skytrain station right beside rogers arena. also people seem to not care to pay the $20 for parking beside the arena for some reason.

C-train station right beside West Village site. Also people seem not to care to pay the $20, etc.

Waiting to hear what the difference is.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by T@T

Bad enough there's not enough room to park any concert goers but now your going to tell 4 people who spent $800.00 for a concert they can't park because there's a running track meet going on?

Faster this whole project gets destroyed the better, already the rest of Canada are laughing their asses off at the ugly shinguard looking thing with no parking.

Fire King and start over.

I'm laughing my ass off all right but I'm laughing at some of the over the top posts in this thread such as this.

[Hockeyguy15]

Just read that the city will have someone to study the contaminated site by the end of the month, then the study will likely take until the end of the year to finish.

So get ready for a whole lot of nothing going on with the project. Maybe some meetings between the Flames and different levels of government, but probably nothing much will come out of those.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Scornfire

The Stampede and all of it's committees are a clust^&%* of self indulgence, though it's finally started cleaning up a bit with their removal from the retail side of it

Self indulgent volunteers is one hell of an oxymoron. The foundation of the Stampede are volunteers and sponsors. Show some respect.

I wake up today with a bit of buyer's remorse. I always wanted it in the west village for the spurring of development and road upgrades. But now I'm feeling a little underwhelmed by what I've seen and sad that theyre moving off the Stampede grounds.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Really though that's what this whole announcement is really about, getting the site cleanup issue resolved. The official announcement that this is the site they want basically pushes the process of getting the cleanup done right to the forefront. If the site will cost on the low end of the cleanup, then it's a minor issue and it's on to the the next step, financing. If it's at the high end of the cleanup, then obviously things get a lot more complicated.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I'm laughing my ass off all right but I'm laughing at some of the over the top posts in this thread such as this.

Truth hurt? Even without the parking problem you have to admit, it's butt ugly.

[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by T@T

Truth hurt? Even without the parking problem you have to admit, it's butt ugly.

What is the point in getting worked up about it when these aren't even the final plans?

[Frequitude]

To be fair though, can we please just all get on board with the idea that the burden of the $250M ticket tax is born by the Flames and can only be partially subsidized by the lender if they offer a below market interest rate.

As it stands now, the Flames are financing $450M out of the $890M sticker price. Now there's huge validity in the arguments that a) that's not enough, and b) the $890M doesn't include creosote cleanup or surrounding infrastructure upgrades, but let's at least get our facts straight on the Flames portion of this.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by T@T

Truth hurt? Even without the parking problem you have to admit, it's butt ugly.

What's butt ugly? Nothing is even close to finalised design wise yet. Unless you really hate sloped roofs I suppose.

[Resolute 14]

Jiri was wondering why people are so pissy in this thread?

Because we have idiotic crap like this, where people are taking their own knee-jerk reactions and trying to project those opinions onto anyone they can:

Originally Posted by T@T

Faster this whole project gets destroyed the better, already the rest of Canada are laughing their asses off at the ugly shinguard looking thing with no parking.

[MrMastodonFarm]

They're all laughing at us!!!!

[Mazrim]

I'm pretty surprised at the amount of people claiming they "couldn't" enjoy a football game in the summer if they aren't outdoors. Calgary's season of good weather is short enough that many fairweather fans would skip out on a Stamps game if the weather isn't great.

Considering the Stampeders play from June to November, here is the UofC average temperatures:


Many home games also have late starts, meaning you're not getting the most of those nice days at McMahon anyway. You're likely to spend more time enjoying the sun before you head to the stadium to the game, so a few hours in a fixed roof stadium is certainly not a dealbreaker when your game starts at 7:00 PM.

Here's the precipitation data for Calgary:


You're not likely to get snowed on at a Stamps game, but you're almost twice as likely to get rained on in those early season games.

The CFL is not a big money maker, and so I'm not sure how it can be justified to have an approximately 200 m x 100 m parcel of land taken up for such little use, or spending huge amounts of money on a retractable roof that is bound to have maintenance problems. The Stampeders play 10 home dates (not including possible playoffs) and the Dinos play 4. How often is the field used otherwise? Not too much.

Comparing the Fieldhouse to the Skydome is also a poor comparison, as you're trying to use something built for the shape of a Baseball diamond versus something built for Football. Also, comparing old covered stadiums to modern designs which have allowances for letting in natural light is also unfair.

Assuming McMahon gets used 30-60/365 days of the year, and a covered roof bumps that number to 150-200/365 days of the year, it's a much better use of that infrastructure simply because of the limited use our climate allows it to be used.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Really though that's what this whole announcement is really about, getting the site cleanup issue resolved. The official announcement that this is the site they want basically pushes the process of getting the cleanup done right to the forefront. If the site will cost on the low end of the cleanup, then it's a minor issue and it's on to the the next step, financing. If it's at the high end of the cleanup, then obviously things get a lot more complicated.

Exactly this.
The Flames owners are not stupid businessmen.
It has become obvious this is step one in a long play.

The skeptic in me wonders what may be the actual end game. We have waited a rather long time, and for this?

[Erick Estrada]

You don't have to sell me on the roof. I go to Stamps games every year but the fall evening games can get pretty cold and I have gone to some playoff games at McMahon where the game took a backseat to me freezing to the point I simply stay home now in the fall because I can enjoy the actual game more and yes I hate the cold and I'm a wuss that way. When you combine the fieldhouse aspect there's simply no way you can make this open air as it renders the facility useless for 7 months a year.

You know the Calgary Cannons didn't fail because of lack of interest. They failed because every spring half their schedule was snowed out and when it wasn't snowing it was too cold for casual fans to come out and freeze their butts off for AAA baseball. Regardless of the general trend in the US we have to remember we are in Canada and summer is short. Also it's only baseball that is going to open air stadiums as all the Minneapolis, Atlanta upcoming football stadiums both have roofs and one of the newer stadiums in Lucas Oil Stadium has a roof.

[MissTeeks]

I had to wear my long underwear and winter coat last weekend to the Stamps game. In the middle of August. I'll take the roof.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

What is the point in getting worked up about it when these aren't even the final plans?

Must be very close if it's on the website.

I'm not worked up about it at all, I'm disappointed after all this time they couldn't design something with a bit of "WOW" in it and with the roadways that area is simply too small for multi arenas.

Some people like big women...I don't, some people like this design...I don't.

[Addick]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

This is apples and oranges. I don't know about the Turin stadium but none of the rest of these were built as indoor field houses in northern cities with a primary purpose of serving amateur sports. These were all built for
primary purpose of pro sports with astrodome maybe one exception.

It's certainly reasonable to wonder if this will be an acceptable field house (don't think I know what that is) but I don't see much of a correlation between this proposal and the stadiums on your list. Unless you are suggesting the plan is to put an MLB team in there which I agree wouldn't work too well.

While it is not a perfect comparison, it is valuable as it highlights the difficulties of using a single venue for multiple sports. Although the level of difficulty will range depending on the differences between the sports proposed to share a venue, there will be struggles and compromises some of which will be too great to overcome.

Even among the various codes of football there are differences that make it a struggle for tenants to be happy with shared venues. While retractable stands may allow Association Football and American Football to share a venue, they may not be good enough to allow the aforementioned codes of football to share a ground with Aussie Rules Football. However, due to similar-sized playing fields Aussie Rules Football and Cricket could happily share a ground without the need for retractable stands.

At the end of the day, there are situations where it can work but we have more than enough examples of abject failures to know that we should proceed with caution.