Quote:
Originally Posted by fenwick16
Why must the stadium cost 100 - 150 million? the InfoCision Stadium in Akron cost $61 million. A Halifax Stadium could be built in stages; the first stage could be $10 - 15 million. Once this first stage is built then it will be much easier for Haliax to attract world class events and then get federal funding for expansion of the stadium.
The timing of your post seems very unusual to me. I think that a meeting with Councillor Sloane, the Mayor and two other councillors is a plus, so why did you pick this time to post such a negative comment?
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I'm sorry that you took my post to be negative, that wasn't my intention. I meant it as a dose of reality.
My number was based on the most recent stadium projects in Canada, most notably those from Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Ottawa. These seemed like the most valid case studies to use when making projections on a Halifax project.
Infocision stadium is an American project, so I don't know how its applicability compares with that of the Canadian cases. I don't know a whole lot about it, but a quick read on wikipedia leads me to believe that the $61M does not include land assembly. If a similar calibre stadium could be built in Halifax for a comparable price, that's wonderful. This particular example, however, seems to be on the low end of all examples we could look at, so it's important to look at it in context. You want to base your estimates on the average cost of comparable projects, not the lowest one you could find.
$10M-$15M won't buy you much of a stadium. TD Waterhouse stadium in London, Ontario cost $10.8M in year 2000 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, you're probably looking at the same type of facility in 2010 for $10M-$15M. It seats 8k, it's made out of aluminum, has poor washrooms and concessions, has no sunken bowl, and is not a large draw for international events. The highest profile events it has hosted are the Canada summer games in 2001 and the world field-lacrosse championships in 2006. Most importantly, it is not any kind of base for expansion.
Look at Moncton's stadium, being built for $17M. Even a stadium that size required an international games in order to get government funding. That appears to be the only way to get federal money for a sports facility these days. They said no in Winnipeg (have committed money to the project, but said it couldn't be used in the construction of the stadium) and they said no in Quebec City.
Where ARE the feds coughing up money? 1) Hamilton for Pan Am games, 2) Toronto for U-20 World Cup, 3) Monction for IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics. If you want federal funds, you'll need to have an international sporting event lined up, and you can ask the Commonwealth Games bid committee how difficult that is.
If we're going to take a "build it and they will come" approach in drumming up support for this stadium, we might as well forget the whole thing. There is no easier argument for nay-saying NIMBYs to shoot down, and they'll have plenty of cautionary tales to prove themselves right.
It's precisely because this meeting is coming up that I wrote my post. This meeting is important if this project is going to be taken seriously by influential policymakers. A pretty graphic doesn't make a persuasive argument. Whoever is speaking up for this project must have their homework done. They need to provide a number of cases where cities were able to pull off this kind of project, how they did it, what worked and what didn't, how they overcame problems, how the electorate reacted, and most importantly, where the money is going to come from. Taking up the cause of a megaproject is a huge risk for politicians, and they're not going to do it unless they believe it can be pulled off successfully.
This meeting is a huge opportunity to bring major public figures on board, fenwick, and I admire how you were able to arrange it. It would be a terrible shame if we let it slip away. I'm telling you, if you walk in there claiming that a voluntary trust fund will be a huge source of capital in the construction of a stadium just like one you heard of in Ohio, they will definitely not be willing to bet their political careers on supporting it.
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