[News] CSEC and City of Calgary agree to restart formal discussions on new arena

[jayswin]

The silliest part of these constant lectures about the team leaving if our stupid citizens and city don't give in and get a new arena built is that the damn city ALREADY agreed to a deal to have a new arena built!!

Anyone following along knows that supply costs skyrocketing during Covid caused the Flames to look for any way they could to back out of the deal because of this, and that's what they did. They knew exactly what they were doing with the city to make that deal fall apart, like c'mon guys.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Won’t somebody think of the monster truck rallies?

Monster Trucks are outside at the Grandstand

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by jayswin

The silliest part of these constant lectures about the team leaving if our stupid citizens and city don't give in and get a new arena built is that the damn city ALREADY agreed to a deal to have a new arena built!!

Anyone following along knows that supply costs skyrocketing during Covid caused the Flames to look for any way they could to back out of the deal because of this, and that's what they did. They knew exactly what they were doing with the city to make that deal fall apart, like c'mon guys.

Not only that, but as soon as the deal fell apart, the city sprang straight to action trying to salvage it, and appear to have made progress in bringing some adults into the room.

The mayor bungled the immediate communications (even though 85% of what she said was on point) - but she was absolutely right to try to control the narrative as CSEC was taking a disingenuous angle.


The city has gone above and beyond in every instance in these negotiations. The merited response to the CNext proposal should have been laughter, but the city politely obliged and did some due diligence related to the proposal (which was inevitable to do at some point but absolutely non-urgent for the West Village cleanup, as evidenced by another decade of inaction on that file).

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Monster Trucks are outside at the Grandstand

Not in January.

Think of the tourism dollars Jack Michaels would spend here.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by jayswin

The silliest part of these constant lectures about the team leaving if our stupid citizens and city don't give in and get a new arena built is that the damn city ALREADY agreed to a deal to have a new arena built!!

Anyone following along knows that supply costs skyrocketing during Covid caused the Flames to look for any way they could to back out of the deal because of this, and that's what they did. They knew exactly what they were doing with the city to make that deal fall apart, like c'mon guys.

I think the Flames pulled out because they knew Calgarians were desperate for a billion dollar venue to host the International Livestock Auctioneer Championships during Stampede and knew they could press them for more public dollars.

[Macindoc]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Not only that, but as soon as the deal fell apart, the city sprang straight to action trying to salvage it, and appear to have made progress in bringing some adults into the room.

The mayor bungled the immediate communications (even though 85% of what she said was on point) - but she was absolutely right to try to control the narrative as CSEC was taking a disingenuous angle.


The city has gone above and beyond in every instance in these negotiations. The merited response to the CNext proposal should have been laughter, but the city politely obliged and did some due diligence related to the proposal (which was inevitable to do at some point but absolutely non-urgent for the West Village cleanup, as evidenced by another decade of inaction on that file).

I disagree, I think the mayor totally bungled the situation, it is the role of a civic leader to give due consideration to all of their communications before making them public; her actions greatly aggravated the situation.

As to your argument that inaction on an environmental file indicates that the issue does not need to be urgently addressed, where exactly have you been in the last 30 years?

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by getbak

Ultimately, the building opened without a major league tenant and quickly became a high-demand concert venue and a good spot for one-off sporting events like the Big-12 Basketball tournament.

K.C is pretty much in the middle of the U.S. and a lot of larger population centers within a 8 to 10 hour drive. So there's a lot more traffic passing thru. Plus given the higher population in the region there are things like College Basketball which has a lot of interest. So I think it's a city that has more opportunities to book events without an anchor tenant.

I'm not sure a new arena in Calgary is going to result in many more concerts than already happening given the logistics to come thru the area. Not sure what type of one off events would work outside of World Juniors which you can do once a decade. But there would be opportunities for new markets to try and move in.

I'd be interested to see how the arena in Winnipeg was doing for bookings prior to the Jets returning. It's one thing for a city to help in building an arena, but they often need to make a terrible deal with the major tenant that only let's them get like 1 month of revenue from it. It might prove to be better value to build a smaller less fancy arena that the city gets most of the revenue from and have a lacrosse team and WHL team as it's more common users.

It would be interesting if that happened and compare how the City of Edmonton does vs Calgary in terms of ROI on the arena.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by getbak

Kansas City did build a new arena with taxpayer money.

The funny thing is, when the Vegas and Seattle expansion talks started, someone asked one of the insiders (I think Friedman) how come we weren't hearing KC's name as a potential expansion target, and he said it was because the city has basically decided they're better off not having a major league tenant in the building. It's better for them to run the building themselves and keeping the money it generates.

When the new building first opened, a bunch of NHL and NBA teams did the whole tour of KC thing to threaten their existing cities into building them new arenas (the Penguins and Islanders both did it, as did Sacramento in the NBA, and possibly a few more), and the city got mad at being used by teams who were never serious about moving there.

Ultimately, the building opened without a major league tenant and quickly became a high-demand concert venue and a good spot for one-off sporting events like the Big-12 Basketball tournament.

Other than paying AEG a building management fee, the city gets all of the money generated from these events... and the public parking lots around the arena. If an NHL or NBA team moved in, they would want all of that money for themselves (and not just from their own games, but the concerts and other events as well). As it stands, the city is fine not having a major league team in the arena because the events actually generate money for the city, which help pay off the construction costs of the building.

This kind of reads like a copy and paste from promotional literature put out by the city. I have no idea what kinds, or how many concerts they are attracting. But the Big 12 basketball tournament over a weekend isn’t exactly a big money maker. I find it hard to believe that building the arena and paying for its upkeep has been a good financial decision for taxpayers.

The city is “just fine” with no major league tenant? They kind of need to be, since it’s not a market many owners would be interested in.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

K.C is pretty much in the middle of the U.S. and a lot of larger population centers within a 8 to 10 hour drive. So there's a lot more traffic passing thru. Plus given the higher population in the region there are things like College Basketball which has a lot of interest. So I think it's a city that has more opportunities to book events without an anchor tenant.

I'm not sure a new arena in Calgary is going to result in many more concerts than already happening given the logistics to come thru the area. Not sure what type of one off events would work outside of World Juniors which you can do once a decade. But there would be opportunities for new markets to try and move in.

I'd be interested to see how the arena in Winnipeg was doing for bookings prior to the Jets returning. It's one thing for a city to help in building an arena, but they often need to make a terrible deal with the major tenant that only let's them get like 1 month of revenue from it. It might prove to be better value to build a smaller less fancy arena that the city gets most of the revenue from and have a lacrosse team and WHL team as it's more common users.

It would be interesting if that happened and compare how the City of Edmonton does vs Calgary in terms of ROI on the arena.

I never said that would apply to Calgary, it was just an interesting story I remember reading about Kansas City.

[BoLevi]

NHL teams could afford buildings if they got their labour costs under control. It's not more complicated than that.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

If you think the Flames owners will finance their own arena when other cities will finance one for them you are out of your minds and they will leave

Leave, then. Bye.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

NHL teams could afford buildings if they got their labour costs under control. It's not more complicated than that.

They could grant an expansion team to Qatar.

[Sandman]

Originally Posted by jayswin

The silliest part of these constant lectures about the team leaving if our stupid citizens and city don't give in and get a new arena built is that the damn city ALREADY agreed to a deal to have a new arena built!!

Anyone following along knows that supply costs skyrocketing during Covid caused the Flames to look for any way they could to back out of the deal because of this, and that's what they did. They knew exactly what they were doing with the city to make that deal fall apart, like c'mon guys.

I thought it was the city coming in with a whole bunch of new frivolous costs that caused the CSEC to back out. The mayor (who I believe was against the new building before she became mayor) thought she would swoop in and kill the deal and become some big hero...

She was wrong, and her approval rating tanked.

[flambers]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I thought it was the city coming in with a whole bunch of new frivolous costs that caused the CSEC to back out. ...

Yep, that's what I heard as well.

If I recall correctly it was road related or something like that

[Sandman]

Originally Posted by flambers

Yep, that's what I heard as well.

If I recall correctly it was road related or something like that

There was some thing to do with environmental mitigation too....

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I thought it was the city coming in with a whole bunch of new frivolous costs that caused the CSEC to back out. The mayor (who I believe was against the new building before she became mayor) thought she would swoop in and kill the deal and become some big hero...

She was wrong, and her approval rating tanked.

Nah, they were minor things which were already agreed to in principal, but which the team used as a foothold to back out.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I thought it was the city coming in with a whole bunch of new frivolous costs that caused the CSEC to back out. The mayor (who I believe was against the new building before she became mayor) thought she would swoop in and kill the deal and become some big hero...

She was wrong, and her approval rating tanked.

CSEC made a bunch of noise but the issues were the equivalent of you or I having a temper tantrum and leaving the groceries at the till because the store is charging a 10 cent environmental fee for shopping bags…

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Macindoc

I disagree, I think the mayor totally bungled the situation, it is the role of a civic leader to give due consideration to all of their communications before making them public; her actions greatly aggravated the situation.

As to your argument that inaction on an environmental file indicates that the issue does not need to be urgently addressed, where exactly have you been in the last 30 years?

If she’d said anything different it wouldn’t have changed the fact that CSEC backed out of the deal. So tired of the narrative that the mayor messed this up. Costs escalated to the point where CSEC didn’t want to be on the hook for the overruns (a condition of the deal they asked for to remove CMLC).

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I thought it was the city coming in with a whole bunch of new frivolous costs that caused the CSEC to back out. The mayor (who I believe was against the new building before she became mayor) thought she would swoop in and kill the deal and become some big hero...

She was wrong, and her approval rating tanked.

That was the “story” that came out. But it wasn’t correct. The fees weren’t new or surprising.

The real reason CSEC pulled out is the huge jump it construction pricing that it was facing at that time.

Even if there were surprised with the costs ( they would have the stupidest local architect ever if they were surprised) those “extra” costs were something like $15 million. They were almost certainly looking at 10-20 TIMES that in extra construction costs.

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

NHL teams could afford buildings if they got their labour costs under control. It's not more complicated than that.

From what I’ve heard, labour relations are also quite uncomplicated.