[News] New Arena - Plan B - Victoria Park

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

This is such small, misguided thinking.

John Smith, power engineer, is tied to the economy. If the entire economy is booming, he benefits. If the entire economy is struggling, he struggles. Sure there are outliers, but by in large, everything is connected.

The economy isn't some weirdly isolated system that excludes certain people in certain jobs. Look at the collapse in the oil and gas business, then go talk to the waitresses/waiters/cooks/people in the service and support industries downtown and tell me what they say. For one, you'll find less of them, and the ones that are still employed aren't making as much as they used to.

This "foreign owned" therefore not beneficial to locals is such a load of crap. The "foreign owned" companies still employ locals and contribute to the overall economy.

Rising tide lifts all boats, eh? think again.

Calgary would be in a much better place spending 200 million cutting city business taxes, or perhaps subsidizing certain industries to attract sustainable and high paid jobs.

The oil boom and bust argument cannot be compared to the Flames and Oilers revenue. that is asinine.

Again, the foreign ownership argument has to do with the multiplier effect, which most studies purport to be near 1:1 for a new arena. money in money out.

Of course all jobs are good, but there are better jobs than some - retail/hospitality is some of the lowest paying jobs in the economy. Many are minimum wage which, arguably, is not enough to sustain those people in those positions!

Also, with substitution, its unlikely any of these jobs would even be lost if the flames left. we would just spend our money on different things. Regardless of how many on here claim they would spend it elsewhere, your hypotheticals and anecdotes do not meet the actual data.

The rabble rabble economy argument for a new stadium is selling false hope to get millions in subsidies - its a piss poor argument that needs to stop being used on here.

Emotional benefit, community benefit arguments? sure! those are the real arguments that need to be made.

But until someone can actually show me an independent study that shows the economic argument is a viable argument, shut up.

[MarkGio]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

I disagree with this. I probably spend about $15-20K on season tickets, and associated beer, food, cabs and other associated incidentals for games.

That money would simply not be spent here without the Flames. I would use it for bigger trips to events elsewhere.

Maybe you would. But an anecdotal opinion shouldn't be considered when establishing public policy.

How would you spend those 41 evenings traveling elsewhere? You have to work, come home, and then do something with that time. If you spend 20K over 41 games, you're dropping 488 bucks a night. For $488 you can't exactly fly to Vegas for the night and drop some coin at their local economy.

Besides, the season tickets is what the Flames benefit from, which is only the small economic benefit of a few jobs and spenders in the hockey ops (ie, managers, players, coaches). People are claiming that its the pubs and venues before and after hockey that yield a net benefit. This "benefit" is the [$488 minus Ticket prices] you spend at the local economy, which based on ticket prices, is only $200 or so per night. I'm sorry, but for those who got $200 to spend 40 times a year on night outings are going to do it regardless. That's dinner and drinks and a movie and popcorn.

Maybe the $250 for game tickets would be saved up and spent elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing that someone with 20 extra thousand kicking around for silly sports event isn't ALSO spending money traveling on nice vacations.

[Red_Baron]

Originally Posted by MarkGio

So why suggest you would spend all this extra disposable income at a highly inconvenient location? C'mon.

You don't think it's reasonable to travel for a product or experience that they would prefer over settling for something convenient?

[MarkGio]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Rising tide lifts all boats, eh? think again.

Calgary would be in a much better place spending 200 million cutting city business taxes, or perhaps subsidizing certain industries to attract sustainable and high paid jobs.

The oil boom and bust argument cannot be compared to the Flames and Oilers revenue. that is asinine.

Again, the foreign ownership argument has to do with the multiplier effect, which most studies purport to be near 1:1 for a new arena. money in money out.

Of course all jobs are good, but there are better jobs than some - retail/hospitality is some of the lowest paying jobs in the economy. Many are minimum wage which, arguably, is not enough to sustain those people in those positions!

Also, with substitution, its unlikely any of these jobs would even be lost if the flames left. we would just spend our money on different things. Regardless of how many on here claim they would spend it elsewhere, your hypotheticals and anecdotes do not meet the actual data.

The rabble rabble economy argument for a new stadium is selling false hope to get millions in subsidies - its a piss poor argument that needs to stop being used on here.

Emotional benefit, community benefit arguments? sure! those are the real arguments that need to be made.

But until someone can actually show me an independent study that shows the economic argument is a viable argument, shut up.

1:1 eh?

http://www.afl.org/canadian_workers_...n_done_by_tfws

[polak]

I don't agree that theres zero economic value. Take '04 for example, you think the entertainment industry and all associated industries in Calgary would have made the same amount of money that year without the Flames? I know its not sizeable but there is some economic benefit to the civic pride and community the sports franchise can create. They have the power to make people happy and excited and ignoring the obvious non-economic benefits of a happy and excited population they do tend to spend more spontaneously instead of planning big ticket purchases that usually take money out of the city.

Season ticket holders are also not likely to spend all of that money (and the money they spend on game days) in the city either.

Again, It might not be a big economic impact but there is definitely some. In the end Im hopeful for a good compromise where both parties get some benefit.

[Bunk]

I scribbled this thinking I might submit as an op-ed to a paper, but I don't think I'll do that, so I'll just post it here. A summary of my thoughts - most of which will already be familiar to most here:

--

Mayor Nenshi last week declared that Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation’s (CSEC) CalgaryNEXT proposal in the West Village district was ‘dead’. While some viewed this statement as somewhat presumptuous, the Mayor, I believe, was actually understating the situation. More correctly, the ill-fated CalgaryNEXT proposal was actually dead on arrival.

I will preface this commentary by stating that I am, what one would call, a hardcore Flames fan. I am a season ticket holder and would very much like to see a new arena built in the near future. I am currently in the land development industry, and was previously a Senior Policy Advisor in the Mayor’s Office up until early 2015. I was involved in the very preliminary discussions, but am not currently privy to any negotiations.

Discussion has continued about the merits of the CalgaryNEXT proposal. I have debated the merits of the current CalgaryNEXT proposal with other Calgarians, including recently on Twitter with local business leader and former Dragon, W. Brett Wilson.

To use the Dragon’s Den analogy, if CSEC was the inventor making the pitch on CalgaryNEXT, and the City and its citizens the Dragons – I’m afraid the inventor would leave the show disappointed. The product is faulty, the costs to produce are too high, the revenue model is uncertain, the “valuation” is unrealistic, and the proponent is not putting enough of their own skin in the game - transferring risk to the Dragons. The Dragons have analyzed the pitch, and despite promising to keep looking at the idea further, it seems pretty clear they are going to say “I’m out”.

Most fundamentally, the arena/stadium simply takes up too much of the land needed for high density taxable uses to pay back the high cost to remediate the land, build supporting infrastructure and partially finance the arena/stadium facility itself in the proposed Community Revitalization Levy (CRL) model. It also lacks the certainty of anchor commercial property to pay back debt, and being detached physically from the downtown core, this is a significant problem facing the economics of this proposal.

Beyond the basic shortcomings of the dollars and cents of CalgaryNEXT, as a city-building endeavor, the plan is deeply flawed. The idea of an “arena district” is to leverage the activity of a central sports facility into an active and vibrant gathering place, including spin-off residential, hotel, retail, restaurant, bar, entertainment uses and public space. These uses need to be “on the way” from where you arrive to the arena. In CalgaryNEXT, the primary point of entry is the Sunalta LRT – patrons were shipped directly into the arena/stadium complex on a bridge high above the street. All the supposed spin off uses were shoved to the side of this gargantuan monolith of a building. Commercial and entertainment uses are “out of the way” and so there would be no such urban vitality - it would all be internalized to the building. Further, the CalgaryNEXT plan relied on retaining the current alignment of Bow Trail. This sterilizes a large portion of the river frontage, which is the hook for what makes the area attractive from a real estate perspective.

The West Village’s time will come. In fact, it stands a better chance without the arena/stadium than with it included. Remediating the land slowly will likely be less costly than on a strict schedule to align with the urgency of an arena/stadium development, Bow Trail can be properly re-aligned, and more developable land for taxable uses will be available, making the balance sheet of a CRL more realistic.

I believe it is time to put the CalgaryNEXT proposal to bed, and focus on the so called “Plan B” with standalone arena on Stampede Park, renovated McMahon Stadium that could be tied to an Olympic bid, and Fieldhouse at Foothills Athletic Park, as originally planned.

A new arena on Stampede Park benefits from lower infrastructure and remediation costs, walkable access to all three (current and future LRT lines) and the downtown core, abundant parking inherent to the Stampede and could anchor a truly vibrant entertainment district, including helping make the Stampede a true 365 day a year destination it has longed to become.

There is a role for the public to play to be sure, and I believe Plan B is the best chance to construct a deal that works for the Flames and most importantly, the citizens of Calgary.

[MarkGio]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

You don't think it's reasonable to travel for a product or experience that they would prefer over settling for something convenient?

Hockey is the convenient experience. Travel is different.

Hockey is home by 5:00pm on a Wednesday and out the door for a few hours. Travel is booking large blocks of time off work, packing, flights and itineraries. I'm sorry, but I cannot believe they are the same things economically. Sure, there are those who are travelling to another city and ALSO take in a hockey game, but what about the other 40 evenings in the year?

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by MarkGio

Maybe you would. But an anecdotal opinion shouldn't be considered when establishing public policy.

How would you spend those 41 evenings traveling elsewhere? You have to work, come home, and then do something with that time. If you spend 20K over 41 games, you're dropping 488 bucks a night. For $488 you can't exactly fly to Vegas for the night and drop some coin at their local economy.

Besides, the season tickets is what the Flames benefit from, which is only the small economic benefit of a few jobs and spenders in the hockey ops (ie, managers, players, coaches). People are claiming that its the pubs and venues before and after hockey that yield a net benefit. This "benefit" is the [$488 minus Ticket prices] you spend at the local economy, which based on ticket prices, is only $200 or so per night. I'm sorry, but for those who got $200 to spend 40 times a year on night outings are going to do it regardless. That's dinner and drinks and a movie and popcorn.

Maybe the $250 for game tickets would be saved up and spent elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing that someone with 20 extra thousand kicking around for silly sports event isn't ALSO spending money traveling on nice vacations.

Thankfully I am fortunate enough to be in a position that I do the other things too. I wouldn't attend 41 more movies without the Flames, and there wouldn't be concerts to see without a new arena.

I am certainly not saying I would attend 41 events outside of Calgary, I would pool that money and go to another NFL game each year, or add a concert in Vancouver, trip to Hawaii, etc.

I could see how I might add some more nights out in Calgary, but as most of mine now are Flames or concert related, I don't know what events would be added. I'd probably ski more in winter, but that's not money spent in Calgary.

I appreciate this is an artificial anecdotal exercise, but I know myself, how I spend and what I choose to spend on, and I cannot think of a local replacement for my entertainment dollar at this time.

I do feel we will get a new arena, so this is hopefully just a discussion that becomes rendered moot, but those are some of my points towards why I feel there is a local, positive economic impact to having the Flames.

Also, and I'm sure you're getting sick of me saying this, I think this was a necessary position for CSEC to take to get Nenshi to the discussion table.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by Bunk

A new arena on Stampede Park benefits from lower infrastructure and remediation costs, walkable access to all three (current and future LRT lines) and the downtown core, abundant parking inherent to the Stampede and could anchor a truly vibrant entertainment district, including helping make the Stampede a true 365 day a year destination it has longed to become.

This is my biggest wish to come from the building of a new arena. I think we have an opportunity to do something truly transformative for the city and citizens and a new arena could be an important part of that. CalgaryNext was never that.
You've given me great comfort Bunk, knowing the city shares this vision.
Thanks for sharing.

[Red_Baron]

Originally Posted by MarkGio

Hockey is the convenient experience. Travel is different.

Hockey is home by 5:00pm on a Wednesday and out the door for a few hours. Travel is booking large blocks of time off work, packing, flights and itineraries. I'm sorry, but I cannot believe they are the same things economically. Sure, there are those who are travelling to another city and ALSO take in a hockey game, but what about the other 40 evenings in the year?

But if you are a hockey fan, traveling to Edmonton 5x a year to go see a hockey game makes sense if there were no team in Calgary.
Sure there are another 40 evenings or whatever but if there is nothing else I deem worth spending​ my money on locally, I won't spend it locally.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

Thankfully I am fortunate enough to be in a position that I do the other things too. I wouldn't attend 41 more movies without the Flames, and there wouldn't be concerts to see without a new arena.

I am certainly not saying I would attend 41 events outside of Calgary, I would pool that money and go to another NFL game each year, or add a concert in Vancouver, trip to Hawaii, etc.

I could see how I might add some more nights out in Calgary, but as most of mine now are Flames or concert related, I don't know what events would be added. I'd probably ski more in winter, but that's not money spent in Calgary.

I appreciate this is an artificial anecdotal exercise, but I know myself, how I spend and what I choose to spend on, and I cannot think of a local replacement for my entertainment dollar at this time.

I do feel we will get a new arena, so this is hopefully just a discussion that becomes rendered moot, but those are some of my points towards why I feel there is a local, positive economic impact to having the Flames.

Also, and I'm sure you're getting sick of me saying this, I think this was a necessary position for CSEC to take to get Nenshi to the discussion table.

So you have a lot of money to spend on entertainment, but you'll spend your entertainment money elsewhere if tax dollars aren't spent to build a place for you to spend your money.

That is no doubt a win-win for you, but not so much everyone else.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

But if you are a hockey fan, traveling to Edmonton 5x a year to go see a hockey game makes sense if there were no team in Calgary.
Sure there are another 40 evenings or whatever but if there is nothing else I deem worth spending​ my money on locally, I won't spend it locally.

The other 360 nights of the year you'll just sit at home in the dark, we get it.

[kevman]

There's a lot of anecdotal talk about the economic value. Wouldn't you think that the Flames would have presented said argument if it existed?

For the record, it doesn't.

"Most of the independent research can't find any economic impact associated with either new arenas, new stadiums, or new franchises or large events," said Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Ma., who has been researching the economics of sport for more than a decade.

"So, building a new arena doesn't seem to have any effect on a city's employment, per capita income, hotel occupancy rates, [or] taxable sales."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-fu...-bet-1.1378210

“NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city,”

http://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/...s-noll-073015/

This study reviews the economic benefits from teams and analyzes, for the first time, the intangible benefits. The results indicate that fans, players, and owners are the prime beneficiaries of a team's presence.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/976884?s...n_tab_contents

In every case, the conclusions are the same. A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/s...orth-the-cost/

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

So you have a lot of money to spend on entertainment, but you'll spend your entertainment money elsewhere if tax dollars aren't spent to build a place for you to spend your money.

That is no doubt a win-win for you, but not so much everyone else.

That's not my point. My point is, there is an economic benefit to the Flames being here, and without them, there's a certain amount of money that simply would not get spent locally.

Based upon my spending habits and desires, I can't think of a local replacement that I enjoy. And yes, other locations have events that I would travel to do and see.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Clarkey

Calgary always wants to punch above its weight to prove it is a legitimate big city until it comes to bucking up a few 100 mil for a professional sports and event venue and then it's time to switch to small town mode. Our owners give so much to the community, they built Calgary economically and don't make much off the Flames (Franchise appreciation aside), it's time to buck up and get this done.

For whatever its worth public financing of stadiums is "small town mode".

Mosaic Stadium was estimated to cost around $278 million to build.[3][6] Funding will be provided by multiple sources; the government of Saskatchewan will provide a grant of $80 million, and a $100 million loan to be paid off through ticket surcharges. The city will provide $73 million in funding, which will be subsidized through property tax increases. The remainder of the budget will be covered by the Roughriders themselves, primarily through naming rights.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_Stadium

Here's the breakdown of NFL stadiums. You'll notice the quintessential small town municipality that is New York didn't pay a penny for their new stadium. Other note-able small towns include Boston and Dallas.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by kevman

There's a lot of anecdotal talk about the economic value. Wouldn't you think that the Flames would have presented said argument if it existed?

For the record, it doesn't.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-fu...-bet-1.1378210


http://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/...s-noll-073015/


http://www.jstor.org/stable/976884?s...n_tab_contents


https://www.brookings.edu/articles/s...orth-the-cost/

Note/disclaimer: I can't read the attachments right now.

I think it depends what the comparison is: Are we comparing existing arena vs. new or new arena vs. no team at all.

My point is based upon the latter.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

That's not my point. My point is, there is an economic benefit to the Flames being here, and without them, there's a certain amount of money that simply would not get spent locally.

Prove it. Google the subject and there are countless articles stating the opposite. I'd love to see the economic argument behind building a new stadium in Calgary with public funds. So would the city. You best believe council would pony up for a new stadium immediately if it was actually a good investment.

Let's call a spade a spade. As a fan you want a new stadium because it benefits you. That's a fine reason to support something, we all do it with roads, transit, schools etc., but it's time to stop hiding behind a false economic argument.

[MarkGio]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

But if you are a hockey fan, traveling to Edmonton 5x a year to go see a hockey game makes sense if there were no team in Calgary.
Sure there are another 40 evenings or whatever but if there is nothing else I deem worth spending​ my money on locally, I won't spend it locally.

Alright, even if this was the case, where do cities get their revenue? Not from sales tax? So you and MAYBE 25 thousand other people go to Edmonton 5 times a year. Is that really an economic detriment? That's what, worth the property tax of one local pub over the course of the year?

Hardly worth 1.5 billion, no?

http://calgary.ca/CA/FS/Pages/Action...enditures.aspx

[jayswin]

Why does everyone keep referencing 25000 in regards to Edmonton's new arena in this thread? It seats like 18300, no arena in the NHL seats 25000.

[MarkGio]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

That's not my point. My point is, there is an economic benefit to the Flames being here, and without them, there's a certain amount of money that simply would not get spent locally.

Based upon my spending habits and desires, I can't think of a local replacement that I enjoy. And yes, other locations have events that I would travel to do and see.

No, there's not. Even if you genuinely believe you're taking your 20 grand and spending them elsewhere, guess what, the city makes marginally less money from that! Because its not like the city gets that exact 20 thousand, and in fact, they get none of it. Maybe, they get some property tax of a business you're supporting, but does anyone believe the value and ownership of Calgary land is based on one guys' 20K? I'm pretty sure people will live in Calgary and land will always go up...