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

[Dion]

nm

[Stay Golden]

Originally Posted by Bunk

^ They showed the Mayor the concept and talked about their preferred funding mix, is my understanding. Then the Flames were to take the proposal public.

But that's nothing approaching a formal proposal to the City.

This will be a long, iterative process with a lot of political and public hand-wringing, is my guess. The site they are talking about is as about as complex as they come, and the dollar amounts are enormous.

I also do know the Mayor and his Chief of Staff were at the Flames celebration event tonight, so discussions are probably ongoing.

Thanks appreciate your feedback.
This has all the tell tale signs of both parties not budging an inch in collectively moving forwards towards a public anouncement anytime soon.
This will get pushed until the 11th hour.
Perhaps selfishly for myself it is for the best because i fully expect the Flames to screw over the STH's with even more over inflated prices. As do many of the fellow STH's feel the same way in our section. There is a real fear that many of us will financially be priced out of fair affordabability and the Flames will just replace a certain amount of STH's with more wealthy ones.
We hope we are wrong.
But like I said i do appreciate your feedback regardless how I feel about Nenshi in general.

[Finger Cookin]

I eagerly await this project achieving the milestone of transitioning from private hand-wringing to public hand-wringing.

[mikephoen]

I'm starting to wonder if the Flames owners play isn't to wait until the oilers open their new building. Every person in Calgary will get so sick of hearing from every person they know in edmonton about how awesome their new stadium is and everything in edmonton is so super amazing. Then even the most ardent anti-public funds people will gladly vote in a 10% raise in property tax so the whole building can be built with public funds just to shut those idiots in edmonton up.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

I'm starting to wonder if the Flames owners play isn't to wait until the oilers open their new building. Every person in Calgary will get so sick of hearing from every person they know in edmonton about how awesome their new stadium is and everything in edmonton is so super amazing. Then even the most ardent anti-public funds people will gladly vote in a 10% raise in property tax so the whole building can be built with public funds just to shut those idiots in edmonton up.

I doubt more than a tiny fraction of Calgarians will care what Edmontonians think of their new arena. Certainly not enough to move the needle on opposition to public funding in Calgary.

[topfiverecords]

Who cares what Edmonton's arena will be like. It's still going to be full of mullets, sweatpants, Halls and Schultz's.

[Envitro]

I think the goodwill that was built up over the last few months will be taken advantage of, or at least the announcement will be made before the good-will evaporates

[taxbuster]

With the change in government (and maybe even if the last one had stayed in power) I just don't think that there is any appetite at all for public involvement. The City *may* be willing to chip in a bit of tax money on the come - that is, not cash, but foregone tax each year for the next "x" years. Assuredly there will be no cash - first of all, the City really doesn't have any and secondly, the Alberta Gov't (which also doesn't have any it doesn't have to borrow) is not likely to chip in.

I could see the "possibility" of some job-creation funding from the Alta Gov't, but again, no big cash. It will be privately financed or it won't happen. I think KK and the Flames ownership knows that, and they're likely trying to find a hotel or land dev partner. Not easy in this economy.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Who cares what Edmonton's arena will be like. It's still going to be full of mullets, sweatpants, Halls and Schultz's.

The arena will look great for a day or two. The it will be covered in trash, stinky, and be filled with slack jaw yokels.

I will be shocked if they can spruce up that area of town enough to make it pleasant.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

With the change in government (and maybe even if the last one had stayed in power) I just don't think that there is any appetite at all for public involvement. The City *may* be willing to chip in a bit of tax money on the come - that is, not cash, but foregone tax each year for the next "x" years. Assuredly there will be no cash - first of all, the City really doesn't have any and secondly, the Alberta Gov't (which also doesn't have any it doesn't have to borrow) is not likely to chip in.

I could see the "possibility" of some job-creation funding from the Alta Gov't, but again, no big cash. It will be privately financed or it won't happen. I think KK and the Flames ownership knows that, and they're likely trying to find a hotel or land dev partner. Not easy in this economy.

City can kick in in other ways by giving land and/or developing infrastructure and/or developing the West Village area around it.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by heep223

City can kick in in other ways by giving land and/or developing infrastructure and/or developing the West Village area around it.

Agreed: land that owes them nothing is a pretty cheap "gift", and looks good on the City.

[calf]

No way should high value land like the WV be gifted to the Flames. Negotiate a reasonable sale price or long term lease, but if it wouldn't be gifted to another business, it shouldn't be gifted to the Flames either.

Surrounding infrastructure is ok to me, however.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

Agreed: land that owes them nothing is a pretty cheap "gift", and looks good on the City.

Giving them $50M (or whatever its worth) in land is more or less the same as giving them $50M in cash. There's nothing cheap about it.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by calf

No way should high value land like the WV be gifted to the Flames. Negotiate a reasonable sale price or long term lease, but if it wouldn't be gifted to another business, it shouldn't be gifted to the Flames either.

Surrounding infrastructure is ok to me, however.

From my limited understanding, the WV land is already part of the pitch from the city, and the remediation is what is up for negotiation?

[Simanium]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

From my limited understanding, the WV land is already part of the pitch from the city, and the remediation is what is up for negotiation?

That is my guess, the Flames want the city to put up the land and are looking for contribution from the Provincial government for the environmental cleanup. Arena or not, the government is going to end up footing the bill for environmental cleanup at some point, I don't have a problem with that.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I doubt more than a tiny fraction of Calgarians will care what Edmontonians think of their new arena. Certainly not enough to move the needle on opposition to public funding in Calgary.

You might need to change the batteries in your sarcasm detector.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Giving them $50M (or whatever its worth) in land is more or less the same as giving them $50M in cash. There's nothing cheap about it.

No it's not. Nobody is going to buy that land - it's going to cost a fortune to clean up.

It's much more complicated then what you're suggesting.

[flambers]

I believe the Flames have the land, they have had it for quite awhile.

Its located where the old greyhound bus depot use to be located.

Not sure how they acquired it......

[getbak]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

From my limited understanding, the WV land is already part of the pitch from the city, and the remediation is what is up for negotiation?

What do you mean by "pitch from the city"?

I don't believe there's been any pitch from the city. It's been a one-way street so far with the Flames presenting their proposal to the Mayor and speaking publicly about the need for a new building. So far, the city's position (or at least what the Mayor has said publicly) is that Calgary doesn't need a new arena, and if the Flames want to build one because it will improve their bottom-line, they should be paying for it themselves.

[Scary Eloranta]

This thread just seems to go around and around in circles. We've been re-hashing this stuff for literally years. Lats face it, with the economy in the toilet and a socialist gov't running the show - this is likely a dead issue - no matter what KK and the Flames might say. We can argue about all the issues till we're blue in the face, it just aint gonna happen. At least not for a very long time (I'd say the ring road will probably get finished first, lol).