Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
Central to access from both the 103, 102, and the MacKay bridge. It's as good a spot as we could offer up in a universe of bad locations.
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While the proposed location is, as you point out, "central" to the 102, 103 and MacKay, it doesn't offer immediate access and the volume of traffic trying to get to and from them via city streets would be crippling.
Halifax just seems to me to be cursed when it comes to the viability of a stadium. I can't think of another city (anywhere!) approaching 450K in population which doesn't already have a decent stadium, but where to put one is real problem. Experience shows that to give it the best chance of success (and in what I'd call a marginal market like Halifax, especially if we think a CFL team should be part of it, it needs to have everything possible going for it), it should not only have easy highway and mass transit access but should also be near - ideally within walking distance of - bars, restaurants, hotels and other urban attractions and amenities. In other words, places where people would actually enjoy being before and after games and concerts.
That means downtown, or near it, but clearly that's impossible on the peninsula. The necessary road network and public transit systems are non-existent and creating them likely wouldn't be feasible, even if cost were no object - and there's nowhere to put the damn stadium anyway.
Locating it off the peninsula means you miss the downtown amenities and atmosphere. One can argue for places like Dartmouth Crossing or Bayers Lake, but even though they at least offer food, drink and accommodations, those places have all the atmosphere and appeal of exactly what they are: cold, sterile, pedestrian-unfriendly big-box retail and business parks. I don't know anyone who'd want to hang out there before or after an event. Oft-mentioned Shannon Park is far from ideal, the surrounding area lacking any real amenities at all. It would have to be built into a destination from scratch, which seems to me to be an unrealistic aspiration at this stage of the city's development.
I think your last sentence is bang on, and if our universe is one of only bad choices, I don't think picking the best of them is the way to go.
I'd like to be convinced otherwise, but I just don't see it.