Events centre visions closer to reality
Published Tuesday June 14th, 2011
Thursday night's brainstorming session will be another big step for long-awaited project
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BY ALLISON TOOGOOD
TIMES & TRANSCRIPT staff
Moncton city council and administrators have all been thinking the same thing: the sky's the limit.
They've been dreaming of a downtown events centre that could house a 9,000-seat stadium-style venue for arts, entertainment and sporting events, community spaces, a library, museum, art gallery, the farmers' market, Codiac Transit hub, retail and commercial spaces, and such a centre may soon be a reality.
Mayor George LeBlanc and city council members want to hear from the residents of Metro Moncton at this Thursday's Blue Sky meeting in council chambers at city hall. Anyone with a dream, wish list or vision for the downtown centre is urged to speak their mind at the meeting, beginning at 6 p.m.
Kevin Silliker, the city's director of business and tourism development, says the name Blue Sky conjures the image of thought, when one is "kicking back outside and relaxing, looking up at the sky and contemplating dreams."
"It's been a popular term around here, allowing us to dream a little bit and same for the citizens," said Silliker.
Ideas, concepts and debate about the centre have been brewing for the past two years, ever since council heard a presentation of a report from IBI Group which suggested that Moncton had a lot to gain from building a multi-purpose entertainment and sports facility. The current downtown community would be revitalized with new energy, new businesses would emerge and the tourism industry would see gains. With 420,000 people within a 90-minute drive, and with another 530,000 people living within a secondary market area two to 2-1/2 hours away, IBI reported that there's a niche for Moncton in the events and sport entertainment business if the facility is looked at as a regional centre.
Silliker will present cases of a few North American cities that have recently built, or have started construction on multi-purpose centres, similar to the one Moncton is eyeing.
"We're trying to get people thinking about what ours could be," he said. Two buildings - the John Labatt Centre, completed in 2002, in London, Ont., and the currently under-construction Evansville Arena in Evansville, Indiana - will be looked at. Silliker says Evansville is an interesting case for Moncton to examine as the projects of both cities are related.
"It's a very interesting project as the city is similar in scope and size and since it's under construction now, the data is very current."
In the spring of 2010, after almost a year since the original report was presented, councillors voted unanimously to approve a report compiled by the Downtown Centre Task Force, which detailed a business case for the financial and logistic implementation of a new facility to host both major sporting events and concerts. At this point, the centre was estimated to cost about $80 million and would require funding from all levels of government. Hundreds of letters and e-mails were sent to the city and this newspaper's Forum page, in support of a multi-purpose events centre.
And the ball began rolling, so to speak.
An important step for the centre's future was reached last July, when the Moncton Wildcats inked a 15-year memorandum of understanding to play at a downtown Metro events centre, beginning as early as 2013. Mayor LeBlanc said the arrangement of having the hockey team as a primary tenant was a precondition for the centre's future development.
It also played a role in the fact that the aging Moncton Coliseum can't keep up with the modern stadium marketplace. An incident a few years ago saw country music superstar Brad Paisley pull out of a Moncton concert because of the Coliseum's inadequacies, and the melting ice at the 2006 Memorial Cup and 2009 World Men's Curling Championship all hurt the city's otherwise excellent events reputation. The city has said that renovating the Coliseum would cost close to $40 million and wouldn't create any long-term economic benefits in the downtown core.
As the federal election campaign heated up, so did promises concerning the metro centre. Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked funding for sports arenas across the country. At the time, Regina was seeking federal cash for a new multipurpose stadium that will house the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL. Quebec City was looking for about $170 million from Ottawa to help build a $400-million arena for an NHL team. Edmonton wanted a new $400-million stadium, while Calgary thought about a new arena.
Premier David Alward pledged support for Moncton during his campaign, saying "Moncton has become a world-class host for entertainment and sporting events and will continue to be an important part of New Brunswick tourism."
The minister of social development and MLA for Moncton West, Sue Stultz, is another advocate for the events centre. She said she has long believed the events centre makes sense and said that she'd bring that argument to the Conservative caucus and cabinet.
Speculation about where the centre would be built is endless and many residents assume the centre will replace Highfield Square. Earlier this year, Silliker said the Highfield Square property is a very visible part of the downtown and would like to see it developed into something spectacular.
The city is looking at three possible downtown locations which have not yet been revealed. The mayor won't comment on the possible locations but has agreed about the amount of speculation that the half-vacant Highfield Square property could be one of them. The locations will remain confidential until a deal has been worked out between the city and the property owners.
This March, the events centre project was unanimously approved in principle by city council and next on the to-do list was finding the appropriate funding for the facility. Now, the actual estimated cost the city is looking at is $90 to $95 million, but two things have led to the higher number of $100 million. The city's consultants recommended working a large contingency into the calculations, and the effects of inflation had to be considered.
Downtown Moncton Centreville Inc. confirmed to council that it would provide $2.5 million over 10 years toward the centre.
Council also endorsed a federal funding submission to P3 Canada, a federal Crown corporation whose mandate is to improve the delivery of public infrastructure by achieving better value, timeliness and accountability to taxpayers, through public-private partnerships.
The application seeking $25 million in federal funds was sent to Ottawa in early April, complete with multiple supporting documents including an independent economic impact analysis from Grant Thornton and a business study from Sierra Planning Consultants. The city also sent out an application for the more traditional tri-partite funding, where the financing of the events centre would be split between all three levels of government.
There has been recent talk of a hotel levy, which could bring in roughly $2 million a year to help pay for an events centre and bolster the tourism industry. Raymond Roberge, the head of the Greater Moncton Hoteliers Association and general manager of the Delta Beauséjour Hotel, said last week that if a levy was implemented, the association would commit to supporting a downtown metro centre.
And also just last week, Mayor LeBlanc shared his vision for the centre, which he says would be busy 360 days a year and become a focal point of downtown development.
"Some may suggest the time is not right, that we have a significant infrastructure deficit and this is a want, not a need. To that I say, a prosperous and vibrant downtown is a need, not a want," LeBlanc said as he addressed the annual general meeting of Downtown Moncton Centreville Inc.
LeBlanc notes that he and council are eager to hear from the public at Thursday's Blue Sky meeting.
"We have our financial house in order. We've reduced the tax rate three years in a row. Moncton has a 6.5 per cent growth rate, making our region among the top 10 fastest growing urban centres in the country, way above the national average, but in order to keep growing we have to build this city. I can assure you that your city council is treating this very seriously and it is council that must make a decision. But in order for council to make an informed decision, we need to hear from the community."
* With files from Brent Mazerolle
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