LETS GET IT DONE !
‘EPR’s’ game plan
Development: Proposal includes race track, soccer pitches, hockey rinks, all rolled into one complex
SANDRA DAVIS
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Saturday November 3rd, 2007
Appeared on page b1
SAINT JOHN - A local group laid out a plan on Friday morning that will change the face of recreation for this generation.
That is, if the province buys into it.
The Exhibition Association wants to help build the city’s sports multiplex as part of a $20-million entertainment and sporting venue that would include a racino in combination with a two-plex ice surface, two indoor artificial-turf soccer fields, an upgraded track and grandstand, a firstclass restaurant, a combination agri-sports dome, indoor golf and walking track.
A racino is a combination race track and casino with slot machines and table games like blackjack, poker and roulette.
Bob Manning, the man in charge of a subcommittee looking to build the sportsplex, characterizes the exhibition association’s idea as“brilliant.”
“They’ve expanded a little bit to say, ‘we’ll have not only indoor soccer, but space that could be converted into an [exhibition facility] for trade shows, cattle shows, or horse shows,’ which I think is wonderful for this community,”said Manning.
“What the EPR (Exhibition Park Raceway) has done, is come forward to say ‘we’ve got a site, we’re willing to give you the land plus some financial contribution,” said Manning.
“They haven’t defined how much, but when I met with them they talked about how they would like to be partners with the city to move this forward,” said Manning.
The proposed development would do much to make Saint John a drive-in destination, rather than a drive-through city, adding to attractions like Horizon Management’s East Point Shopping development at Retail and Fashion drives, two new hotels, movie theatres and a strip of restaurants.
“We’ve always said the best location for something of this nature is on the East Side of Saint John,”said Manning.
“It fulfills an awful lot of need by putting it in the East.”
Manning first met with the exhibition association two weeks ago, at their request.
The group is the first in the province to go public with a gaming proposal; proponents are still awaiting the release of the province’s much anticipated gaming policy, which is expected to be announced within weeks. It had been slated for release in June, but was delayed.
“We recognize that the status quo is not an option,”Premier Shawn Graham told a Telegraph-Journal editorial board meeting last spring.
“We recognize that there has to be a social responsibility of government, as well, in putting in programs for addiction services as we modernize our gaming strategy,” he said at the time.
The province’s revised gaming policy is expected to outline the parameters under which gaming facilities would be able to operate in the province.
Once the policy is announced, it’s expected a call for proposals will be made with government deciding which ones to accept.
If the exhibition association’s proposal for a racino is denied, it will be the end of harness racing in Saint John, says Blair MacDonald, the exhibition association’s general manager.
But,he said,that doesn’t mean the sports multiplex is down the drain.
“It doesn’t mean everything goes,” says MacDonald.“The new exhibition building will be built anyway and we’ll have indoor soccer.”
It might however, affect the contribution the association could make towards a two-plex rink because construction funds would come from the racetrack, he said.
“We’re basically saying, ‘we have the land we can contribute and we have some financial resources to contribute.’“I think there’s a wish from the private sector to have these types of facilities, it ties into retailing and everything else that’s in the area,”said MacDonald.
The Exhibition Association plans to partner with a Quebec firm called Attractions Hippiques to run the racino, which operates all four race tracks in that province.
The association is looking for no government money for that venture.
“Our partner is prepared to raise the capital for that,”said MacDonald.
Attractions Hippiques vice-president Gerard Landry, who was in Saint John for the announcement, told the crowd his mission is to “put harness racing back on track. Exhibition Park has a nice piece of land and they’re well placed inside a nice big city. They need investors. They don’t want to take government money and this is our business.”
The half-mile track at Exhibition Park has been home to harness racing for more than 50 years.
“The exhibition association sees this as an opportunity to revitalize the state of the harness-racing industry both locally and provincially,”said Willard Jenkins, Exhibition Association board president.
“At least 75 per cent of the racing that goes on in this province happens here.”
A racino would deliver about $1-million annually in municipal and provincial property taxes, he said.
“One thing we are absolutely adamant about is we are not looking for taxpayers’money.
We’re looking to partner with people on the racing side.”
If everything goes according to plan, the racino and sportsplex could open sometime in 2009.
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Damn when did I miss the memo stating that a pyramid was being relocated from Egypt to Saint John? 
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