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Originally Posted by JHikka
The stadium is what's holding Halifax back - Moncton is held back due to size, as its stadium would simply have to be renovated and expanded to be suitable if the metro were large enough.
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It is a little weird though how on the one hand people talk about how Halifax's hurdle is to build a $120-300M stadium, but Moncton's $20-30M stadium is often assumed to be approximately ready to go with some minor alterations. I think if you accept that Moncton has something resembling a CFL-ready stadium then you also have to accept that something modest in Halifax would be sufficient. Maybe a $70M stadium. That was almost built there a couple years ago. The city's capital budget is in the $200M range annually. $100M is a medium-sized project of the type that is built every couple of years, not something for which the stars need to align. A $500M-1B project in Halifax is large in local terms and really does require a lot of coordination (but would not necessarily in a city like Toronto).
If you say that a new CFL team needs a $150M stadium then you are arguing that Moncton's existing stadium does not constitute a significant advantage. In fact the current stadium may almost not be worth converting since it has a track.
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Firstly, nowhere in Atlantic Canada can compete with Metro Halifax's growth, let's just get that out of the way.
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I'm used to people freaking out on here if you admit that Halifax isn't just one of many similar cities in Atlantic Canada, so I try to avoid pointing it out. The reality is it's becoming or has already become an economic capital for the region similar to what's happened in a bunch of other parts of Canada. The fact that Moncton is now #2 in the Maritimes is partly a consequence of that. Debating where to put a CFL team in the Maritimes isn't that far off from debating where to put one in Ontario or Quebec. Maybe there is a thread somewhere where people argue that NHL teams should move to Drummondville or Hamilton.
Maybe this will be interpreted as a shameless cheerleader post but it's based on data. If Halifax were 1.5x the size of the next-biggest city instead of 3x I'd have a different opinion.