Saskatoon Construction III
 

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Saskatoon Construction

Saskatoon Construction II

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Image Source: http://www.rvwest.com/article/saskat...t_of_saskatoon


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Image: Source: http://www.tourismsaskatoon.com/spor...t-us-partners/

A few previous Posts from the last thread. If anyone would like to edit past present or future projects in the OP please let me know.

Thanks Cyro. I meant to put together a project compilation for the first post but have been too busy.

^ Cool Echoes. If you ever have the time or feel like doing it just post it and I'll add it to the OP...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R9TiekxePo

Can you imagine all these Rush fans spilling out of Saskatoon's new downtown arena and heading to restaurants and pubs -- or going to restaurants and pubs before a Rush game? What an atmosphere it would create downtown.

(A guy can dream.)

Absolutely right! Not a season ticket holder but will probably end up going to 5 games this year with the playoffs (going to 4th game this year tomorrow). There are 6 of us that all go together and we ALWAYS meet before the game for some food and beverages. Unfortunately, because of location of current arena we tend to head home after the game. I have no doubt we would also go for a beverage or 2 after the game if it was downtown given all the restaurant and pub options!

I too dream.....

Would the Riders be considered anchor tenants for New Mosaic Stadium in Regina with only 10 games per season there? :shrug:

Current Brandt Centre if filled in with seats to capacity would be 8,000 seats, I'm not sure spending over $100 million on a new arena with only a thousand more seats than current arena has would make sense.

I don't see new arena's being built in Regina or Saskatoon in the next couple decades either but it also takes a decade or so from inception-to-completion for most facilities so i'm not surprised about talk about new arenas

Plus, I don't think the Blades would be relocated even if an AHL team were to move there. After all, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver are doing pretty well at maintaining both their NHL and WHL teams.

Brandt Centre only seats about 6500. They are doing a reno/expansion for the 2018 Memorial Cup. But that is only about 500 more seats

Those cities aren't really comparable to Saskatoon, though. A better comparison would be Winnipeg with the Jets and Moose, and even then the city is three times the size of ours.

[QUOTE=SaskScraper;7767064]Would the Riders be considered anchor tenants for New Mosaic Stadium in Regina with only 10 games per season there? :shrug:

An apples to oranges comparison. Mosaic Stadium is an outdoor facility which doesn't require HVAC on a 24/7/365 basis like an indoor facility like SaskTel Centre or Brandt Centre requires.

Yes, the offices, team facilities, Rider store, etc. inside Mosaic obviously need heating & air conditioning, but not the entire facility itself. The field can be dormant six months/year. Not so with an arena. Its needs more event dates to help cover operating costs (like a hockey team that plays minimum 36-40 home games/year).

Also not saying the Rush aren't an important and valuable tenant at SaskTel Centre, just that 8-12 home dates/season by itself doesn't justify a multi-hundred million dollar downtown arena. That's all.

Current Brandt Centre if filled in with seats to capacity would be 8,000 seats, I'm not sure spending over $100 million on a new arena with only a thousand more seats than current arena has would make sense.

[/QUOTE]

On that point, $278M was spent to build New Mosaic Stadium and it has the exact same seat count of 33,000 as the old Mosaic/Taylor Field. The priority is on amenities, fan experience and new revenue-generating opportunities like suites and luxury boxes.

I would have to disagree. With the Rush drawing fans and with the size of the city, I don't think Saskatoon would be big enough to support the Blades, the Rush and an AHL team. Not enough population and corporate base to support that many teams.

Brandt Centre is just about the right size for a junior hockey market. Too much bigger and you lose some of the urgency around scarcity of tickets. I'm sure the Blades would tell you SaskTel Centre, outside of a Memorial Cup, is too large a venue for them. The Edmonton Eskimos have the same issue with Commonwealth Stadium, 60,000 seats is too big for today's CFL. It's why the Riders didn't build capacity above 33,000.

Regina is missing out on alot of touring acts. I am behind the scene alot at Brandt Centre and the old barn is showing its age. The only way i can see a new barn being built is with private money. Other then that i dont think Regina will have a new facility.

This is a great read on what has revitalized American cities in the past 5 years - and boy have they revitalized, in Chicago alone 300,000 jobs moved downtown in the last 5 years, mainly thanks to corporations moving out of their small town offices. Things in the large centers usually happen 5-10 before centers like Saskatoon so maybe there's an opportunity for Saskatoon here. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chicago...sla=y&mod=e2fb

Bourgault I'm looking at you to come to Saskatoon.

I don't believe anyone was saying that the RUSH were 'anchor tenants' that justify a new arena downtown. They were simply used as one example of a stable draw of 15,000 over 10 games (150,000 people) plus playoffs, that could be injecting even more life into Saskatoon's downtown core if an arena existed there. Sasktel Centre ranks right up there as one of the busiest arena's in North America in terms of days booked per year for events. And certainly, continues to be THE facility in Saskatchewan for touring music acts (except for the large outdoor touring acts which will go to Mosaic).

It is just frustrating for those of us who go to RUSH games and major concerts here in Saskatoon at the inadequacy of the facility to handle large crowds and the total lack of additional entertainment options (i.e. restaurants, pubs, bars) in the vicinity.

It is not too early to talk of a new facility, given it will likely take 10 years. My god....look how long it is taking to get the 3,000 seat Uni arena built!!

^^Ditto what PrairieGuy said

8-12/yr Rush games doesn't require spending $100 million on downtown arena

8-12/yr Rider games did require $278 M priority on amenities, fan experience and new revenue-generating opportunities like suites and luxury boxes

completely makes sense..
I don't care either way, just seems like shakey logic.

Swift Current has enough population to support Broncos'. If Saskatoon population ever can't support the Blades they should move to The Battlefords where they can have a better chance with its better population/corporate base for "..new revenue-generating opportunities like suites and luxury boxes" :cheers:

Aren't the Broncos the biggest money losers in the CHL?

What about Lloydminster, they are about double the size of the battlerfords are they not? probably have a better corporate base there too?

Grande Prairie Could also be a contender for a team. Population of 60k puts it larger than PA, Moose Jaw, Swift current.

Though their rink only has a capacity of ~2300, which puts it on the smaller size in the league from what i can tell.

You would not get a WHL expansion or relocated franchise with less than 5000 capacity and even that might be light.

anyone know if the Market Mall project is still a go ? i remember a 2017 springtime start date

looks like College quarter hotel is capped out as well.

From what I've heard, Market Mall project is still going ahead with the new owner, although my source is pretty far down the chain and may not necessarily be told something is not going ahead until it's well dead. There's also a bunch of new tenants going in the mall but not anything to get excited over unless you live across the street.

I agree with everything you've said here

Sorry SaskScaper but my reply to the first part of your reply got embedded in your post above.

On your second point, I didn't say Saskatoon can't support both the Blades & the Rush. I was responding to another poster who talked about an AHL team and I said Saskatoon, at this point, couldn't support all three teams...in that scenario, I believe the Blades would be the odd man out.

Thanks for the spirited discussion! :cheers:

Yes from what I've heard, the actual mall project is still a go, but the 3 new condo towers that were proposed are no longer being built. I talked with Strathallen out of Toronto (the devs) on Monday, then the property manager on Wednesday. They both told me that the condo project has been scrapped for almost a month. I had a GC send me a recent MERX solicitation for this project, with all the building specs for all 3 towers. Not sure why they would solicit a project that has been scrapped for over a month.

It's too bad, really. I know a lot of people that are looking for work right now.

too many letters from the blue-haired people lol......

Saskatoon supports the Blades, but I don't think a lot of die hard fans necessarily enjoy the direction the team is going under the current owners. Owner has his son running the team as GM... His son has had zero experience in hockey operations before his dad bought the club. Nepotism is rarely good in sports.

But I've heard from a few people (though the Blades will deny it) that the organization is very much for sale. I've heard other people mention that they Rush may be interested in buying the team, but the Priestners and Bruce Urban are business rivals in Edmonton. Hence why you've never seen any real cross-promotions between the two clubs even though they share the same arena.

But as for the Sasktel Centre, we're rapidly approaching the point where I think we're going to start missing concerts because of the aging facility. The city will have to decide whether they build new or renovate. It will be interesting to see what effect the North Bridge will have on travel times to and from the Sasktel Centre. I've begun taking Marquis all the way to Arthur Rose Drive and down Warman road and it's way quicker than any other route during Rush games.

I should say that I am disappoint so far with the City of Saskatoon that there are so few "park and ride" options to get to and from Rush games. I'd park at Preston Crossing (or other malls) and take a "Lacrosse Express" to the Sasktel Centre for a couple of bucks. They do it in Regina for Rider games. Works pretty well. Why not here? Promote your bus service.

because people here prefer to drive themselves everywhere. im guilty of it myself, not intentionally but it just happens. 6 of us go to the rush game or some pub/place to eat, we all drive in seperate cars, depending on the friend, ill pick them up or vise versa, but even some of my friends/acquaintances, its still " ill meet you there" type talk.


speaking for sasktel centre-- if we used the school busses that we used for garth brooks last summer, id utilize that also. or implement some park and ride system.

people here are just lazy altogether ( not pointing at you folks ). no one wants to walk/ride bikes/transit except a tiny fraction because its too hard or far:koko: our city was and will forever be built on driving cars, its not changing anytime soon:shrug:

It will be interesting to see how opening of Commuter Parkway bridge at Marquis Dr will affect ingress/egress to SaskTel Centre. The fact that people will still have to drive through traffic-light intersections at Warman Rd & still have to cross the same busy intersection at highway 11 plus have to enter parking from Marquis Dr won't really make things much better though.

Too bad the city can't rub a couple brain cells together & think of having a dedicated bus lane that could enter SaskTel Centre direct right off Yellowhead highway and have entrance back on Idylwyld for buses only. The city has larger articulated buses with higher capacity that could work great for this very reason. Bus system could still work..barring fiasco like Eagle's concert few years back where people were literally freezing waiting for City transit buses that weren't operating.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1651/2...a6f07efa_o.png

One can use a simple online amortization table to crunch numbers on this. In order to pay for itself with 500,000 per year attendance to major events, a $200 million arena would need to add a $24 facility fee to every event (including Blades games). This assumes a 30 year amortization at 4%. That is not sustainable. You would therefor need government and municipal grants to bring that down to about $5/ticket. The Riders are charging $12 to pay for Mosaic.

Based on the Province's precedent formula they would contribute 30% or $60 million, but only if their finances turn around (which will take at least 4 years).

The other issue is that $200 million will get you an arena that is smaller than SaskTel few luxuries.

lol sorry i'm kind of a newb around here. Can you explain the reference?

elderly folks. just throwing a joke around saying they probly cancelled the project because of the high stacks of letters from the elderly from that area saying that this project is a bad idea.

i wonder why they cancelled it? arent we trying to "infill" better? was the previous post a while back " too toronto for saskatoon" the reason why

Ohhh jeez ya I should have known lol. The property manager I spoke to sounded rather annoyed that I was asking about it. She basically told me to go fly a kite. Who knows, private owners and devs have no obligation to talk about it, so maybe they're just keeping the information private for now. I'm gonna cross my fingers and still hope for the best.

Same reason that most project don't proceed. The numbers simply didn't work. Cost to build was going to be too high for them to generate an acceptable return.

I heard an interesting rumour that the two new build Brown's Social Houses have pulled out both building supplies and new equipment from these two locations and a notice offering a sub-lease posted. Anyone got anything on that situation?

The current brown's up and running in the city or the one's that are about to open?

I'm out in Kensington and the Browns location was done building and ready to move into early this winter. There has been zero activity at that location. No insight into Browns itself but I'm doubting we'll see them open, got too big too fast I think.

Aren't they franchises, maybe its just a local thing because of the economy, is this happening in other cities.

Winnipegs has a few under construction/or already opened up. they are franchises, i think i read in that thread that there is 1 owner for 3 of them? 2 for sure...

i didnt know kensington was getting a browns, i was under the impression that Lawson mall/rosewood by RBC were the next locations. or are there 3 additional ones now ?

There's a sign saying Conexus and Browns. The Conexus has been open for a while. The Browns building is right beside Conexus and is fully constructed just no furnishings or finishes inside. You'd assume if they were opening they'd have gotten it done over the winter so they could open for spring/summer. I'd love to be wrong as I was looking forward to the Browns walking distance to my place but not looking likely.

That's such a cool skyline especially for a smaller city. I've never been Saskatoon. It would be fun to take a trip sometime.

I don't believe that. I think that if buses were a relatively hassle free, convenient option more would take them to events. But they're not even offered. What you need is a bus only loop that drops people off at the arena and a pick-up area where it is easy to find/load your bus back to your stop.

Ridership in Regina isn't much different than in Saskatoon. I guarantee you that a lot of people who take the football express only get on a bus going to and from Rider games.

It's easy to say that people won't take them, but if it's a better option, they will.

City buses do run to the Rush games and, judging by the mass of people on them leaving last week'd game, they are certainly getting used. They use dedicated lanes once near Sasktel Centre, which is where most of the wait is experienced getting in and out of the games. So the service is there, though I can't comment on whether or not there would be more buses used if offered or even if they are full to capacity on the way into the games. I'll watch them carefully at tonight's game while walking to the arena from where I parked my car.

That being said, I do agree with Mitchelk12's post. We're still a driving society here. Since getting my drivers license over 35 years ago, I've taken a regularly scheduled City bus exactly one time, and that was to go pick up my car from the repair shop 30 years ago. I'll take them for special events, but not as a regular way of getting from point A to point B. I enjoy the flexibility to go where I want when I want, plus I really enjoy driving. There are also work and home locations that make the bus impractical for me, but even without those, I'd likely be driving.

It's changing, but slowly and will take time and changing attitudes. Younger people are generally more socially responsible, but until traffic makes mass transit more convenient than driving (like the Skytrain from Vancouver airport to downtown), I believe private vehicles will still be the first choice for most Saskatoonians.

STC is probably looking to sell some buses..
maybe if SaskTel Centre/Rush bought some of these buses at a good deal and used them as Rider buses in off season or for service for concerts maybe that would help.
The thing is if these same buses are caught in traffic along side cars in the same gridlock at SaskTel Centre, what's the benefit to people that are making the extra effort to take transit.
Same with regular city transit in Saskatoon, for someone to take daily transit to & from work in Northend Industrial where Saskatoon transit is less than convenient to say the least (hour & a half each-way to commute). Who is this really benefitting? just helps regular commuters in cars to get to work quicker.

Looks like there is a new art display (possibly a promotion) going up downtown on the grass just in front of the Broadway Bridge. Bunch of crates with signs on them that advertise the Bess and new developments.

Probably temporary, but nice to see something new downtown.

Don't hold your breath on that one. Bourgault have a small engineering office in Saskatoon, rest is in St Brieux. Bourgault have gone virtual desktops so now a lot of office staff can work anywhere even from around the World. No need for a large "Corporate" office anymore.

I took a bus downtown from a Rush game last year. (we carpooled there and got dropped off at the Tim's to avoid the crush.) It was pretty quick leaving the rink and only jammed up because of all the other people who were trying to get downtown in their single occupancy vehicles. The buses were full, and we could have a beer or two at the game knowing we didn't have to drive. I also take buses from the Ex when we decide to go.

I drive a lot but it's only because of the infrastructure - I can't afford to live on a good bus route for me or near my work (I work in the north industrial). With the slow down in the economy I can drive to work across the circle north bridge in less than 15 minutes now, compared to 25 in 2012-14. Still an hour on the bus, though. I'm mid 30s and there are lots of people in my cohort who would change their habits if there was better infrastructure to support it.

the 2 times i took the bus to north end canarama- eastview....took 50 minutes. which took way too long for a usual 15 minute drive. I can ride my bike using our trail system and get that distance in the same amount of time without the waiting period. ill take the bike ride anyway, its more fun anyways.

so for me, the issue is standing there and waiting. i think thats the same for everyone else too? will the BRT change that mindset much ? i know not for me.....

I was talking to my sisters bf over easter, we both came to a conclusion that if we were to make a switch in transit areas, and get people onto something different, something would have to stop us dead in our tracks in to make a good portion of us use an alternative transit solution.

speaking of biking, if people actually knew how easy and quick it was to bike around, i think they would use that option as well. we have an excellent trail system thats fun to ride too!