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

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Joborule

I think recent trends in America have shown that teams/owners are very weary to shifting configurations for different playing fields. Reason being the seatings can suck for the non primary configuration (or all of them). The most common being football and baseball, have owners that are in those current setups move into new faculties that's purely intended for one sport only. I don't think Flames ownership would want to do something like that. And with NHL being the only major league here, doesn't make sense for them economically since it would cost A LOT to do that I figure.

Flames are going to make an arena that can be used for hockey, basketball, lacrosse, and conventions/concerts. And they will renovate McMahon for football and soccer I'd imagine.

I realize that multisport buildings aren't popular anymore but the main issue with buildings like the skydome is that they are simply too big for baseball which is why all the new MLB fields are on the small size compared to football. I am talking about something in the range of 30,000 that isn't really going to be substancially larger than a standard 20,000 seat areana. The only steats that may be compromised is for baseball but we are really only looking at smaller crowds anyway. Soccer, football, and hockey all use the same essential seating patterns.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by J epworth kendal

It's not the closing the upper deck part that people are worried about here, it's how in the world you get quality seating right up to the glass for an arena, while still being able to have enough floor space to house a CFL sized field.

With retractable seats. My idea is a long shot but I know the Flames have looked into something of this sort. Of course the biggest obstacle would be making the building hockey friendly for the main tennant so that would be the main issue as well as money. I'm not saying this is going to happen by any means but it's the type of stadium this city needs over just a new arena.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

With retractable seats. My idea is a long shot but I know the Flames have looked into something of this sort. Of course the biggest obstacle would be making the building hockey friendly for the main tennant so that would be the main issue as well as money. I'm not saying this is going to happen by any means but it's the type of stadium this city needs over just a new arena.

If you want to do that properly where hockey and football can have proper seating for both of those configurations, you're gonna have to do a lot of engineering work to pull it off. Not to mention to make it work with the concourse and not leave too much unoccupied/emptied spaces. To this would require a lot of work, and a boatload of money, which in the end makes something like this cost-prohibited; especially when only one team is part of multi-billion dollar industry/league.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

and..........

Three different sized playing surfaces requiring three different seating configurations. The dislike of FieldTurf would severely limit the appeal for soccer. The high roof required for baseball would make the hockey atmosphere as boring as possible. The costs of operating and maintaining the ever-changing seating setup would push the operating costs higher. You'd have 15-20,000 empty seats for the Hitmen and Roughnecks making those games incredibly unpleasant to be at (so you'd move them to the adjacent arena, taking away two of your key tenants or operate a 30,000 seat venue at half-capacity). The 10,000 seats you've built in the upper deck would be the most expensive to build and not bring you anything until the playoffs for your most in-demand team and provide the least amount of revenue for the 9 or 10 Stampeders games. This doesn't even touch on the initial construction costs being through the retractable roof. Etc.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I realize that multisport buildings aren't popular anymore but the main issue with buildings like the skydome is that they are simply too big for baseball which is why all the new MLB fields are on the small size compared to football. I am talking about something in the range of 30,000 that isn't really going to be substancially larger than a standard 20,000 seat areana. The only steats that may be compromised is for baseball but we are really only looking at smaller crowds anyway. Soccer, football, and hockey all use the same essential seating patterns.

A CFL field is 150 yards by 65 yards, or 87,750 square feet.

An NHL rink is 200 feet long by 85 feet wide, or 17,000 square feet.

The fact that a CFL field is 5 times bigger than an NHL rink (not including the much larger sidelines) is why people have an issue with your idea.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Not buying that at all and my idea actually makes a lot of sense in terms of revenue sources out of a single facility. I don't buy that closing the upper deck would be crappy for hockey if it was designed properly and it would be perfect for the Stampeders. We aren't talking about a cavernous 60+ plus stadium like Skydome.

So we're talking about a stadium where the seats can move back and forth, can change their orientation to the field as well as their pitch, and one that could be built for a reasonable price?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by valo403

So we're talking about a stadium where the seats can move back and forth, can change their orientation to the field as well as their pitch, and one that could be built for a reasonable price?

Not just the seats, whole concourses would have to move. On top of that, you would have to have something that would fill in the space vacated by the moving stands and concourses when hockey was being played.

As I said before, to even make it somewhat work would cost more than simply building two separate buildings.

[Azure]

A multi-purpose stadium might not work, but a huge complex with a NHL arena, football stadium, baseball field, soccer field, etc, etc might work.

Of course suddenly you're easily looking at a billion dollars or more.

[North East Goon]

What if they went retro and made it look like the old style stadiums ala Camden Yards in Baltimore? Not sure how that would work for an arena, but hey its an idea.

[SebC]

Just to illustrate how collosally stupid a football/hockey arena is, here's a CFL field (roughly to scale) superimposed on the Saddledome seating chart. Note that the boxed area includes the 6 foot sideline buffer but not the team areas (benches).

[Ruttiger]

As usual, Edmonton was waaaay ahead of Calgary regarding a multipurpose facility

http://www.rewedmonton.ca/content_view2?CONTENT_ID=1933

Didn't fly then and won't fly now.

[getbak]

There's this arena in Japan where they move a giant block of seats, along with the concourse and everything else to change the size and configuration of the building: http://www.saitama-arena.co.jp/e/facility.html


I'm sure it would be cheaper to build two purpose-built buildings than it would be to try to make something like that work.

[Roughneck]

And then throw in a baseball field that goes 100m to each corner wall and 115m to the centre field wall.

Or even something smaller:

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Ruttiger

As usual, Edmonton was waaaay ahead of Calgary regarding a multipurpose facility

http://www.rewedmonton.ca/content_view2?CONTENT_ID=1933

Didn't fly then and won't fly now.

Alas, the vision never came to fruition, pushing the Omniplex into the annals of history as another grandiose idea that never came to be.

Other ideas that never came to be in Edmonton:

Dress pants, non-mullet haircuts, colognes that aren't Brut and daily bathing.

[Joborule]

One thing we're all forgetting in this multi configuration stadium as well.

Luxury suites? How would those work with multiple configurations? Considering you want to make those have great quality viewing as well.

The more you break it down, this would be an engineering jewel to pull off with function, but you'll be building the most expensive stadium ever as well. It would probably be cheaper to build separate state-of-the-art arena and stadium.

[Dr. Pepper]

I suppose this is a bit off topic, but of interest to the thread:

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=414733

[SebC]

Originally Posted by getbak

There's this arena in Japan where they move a giant block of seats, along with the concourse and everything else to change the size and configuration of the building: http://www.saitama-arena.co.jp/e/facility.html


I'm sure it would be cheaper to build two purpose-built buildings than it would be to try to make something like that work.

According to wikipedia, it cost 20 billion yen in 2000, which is about 300 million CAD today. We can have two of these for the price of Edmonton's arena?

[getbak]

Originally Posted by SebC

According to wikipedia, it cost 20 billion yen in 2000, which is about 300 million CAD today. We can have two of these for the price of Edmonton's arena?

Jobing.com Arena and the MTS Centre were both built less than a decade ago, and combined cost less than Edmonton's new arena budget.

[Dr. Pepper]

Originally Posted by getbak

There's this arena in Japan where they move a giant block of seats, along with the concourse and everything else to change the size and configuration of the building: http://www.saitama-arena.co.jp/e/facility.html

I'm sure it would be cheaper to build two purpose-built buildings than it would be to try to make something like that work.

Originally Posted by SebC

According to wikipedia, it cost 20 billion yen in 2000, which is about 300 million CAD today. We can have two of these for the price of Edmonton's arena?

That's bloody brilliant - but I'm not sure our officials are cool enough / forward thinking enough to even consider it.

[North East Goon]

Originally Posted by getbak

There's this arena in Japan where they move a giant block of seats, along with the concourse and everything else to change the size and configuration of the building: http://www.saitama-arena.co.jp/e/facility.html


I'm sure it would be cheaper to build two purpose-built buildings than it would be to try to make something like that work.

Something like this would be epic.