Halifax Stadium Discussion

[q12]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

I logged in with my facebook account and I can see the other comments but not my own. Maybe I need the Ustream account as q12 has stated.

I don't usually use chat accounts so I am not familiar with the setup.

yeah fenwick you need to make a ustream account. I had the same problem.

[cormiermax]

Its really easy to sign up, took me less that 10 seconds.

[q12]

Fenwick no luck with the chat?

[Jstaleness]

The chat is a great opportunity to get are ideas heard. During the crowd speeches they mentioned our top 3. It was as close to being in the room with them as you can get. Too bad though because I would have had something to say to the guy that is too lazy to cross a bridge for a free booze football game.

[WestEndHali]

As many people as possible from this forum should log in tomorrow night and make themselves heard. Unfortunately I'll be unable to attend online or in person due to a prior engagement, but I hope those that have the time will.

[WestEndHali]

Originally Posted by Jstaleness

The chat is a great opportunity to get are ideas heard. During the crowd speeches they mentioned our top 3. It was as close to being in the room with them as you can get. Too bad though because I would have had something to say to the guy that is too lazy to cross a bridge for a free booze football game.

haha I know. What was that guy thinking?!?!

[fenwick16]

I signed up for ustream and it worked (thanks q12). I wish that I was still a resident of Halifax so that I could go and voice my opinion.

I can't say that I saw a lot of passion for the HRM to build a stadium.

One person stood up and said he was involved with the Atlantic Schooners and Maritime junior football and he was sure this could be done without any taxpayer money. I wonder why it wasn't done 30 years ago ... It sounds so easy!

[ATL Stadium]

Back from the session....not sure how I feel about it all.
I dont really like the musical chair idea, just seemed childish to me....but did appreciate the opportunity to input ideas even though it was via the dummy post-it note on a board thingy again.
There were a few not gonna go so we dont need it people there, and lots of who is gonna pay people.....
The committee did not take questions nor did the architects....would have been good to get some info on what they uncovered so far....sites, costs, etc

It did seem that the committee members that I spoke with were set on the 10+10 idea for seating.....does seem to be very much of a "vision" type of session.
One idea the architect liked was to build public open places incorporated into the stadium design. His thought was to allow use by the public when not rented out fro an event....picnic park sort of thingy.
A lot of talk about building community and being the time for Halifax to step up on par with other Canadian cities.....civic pride behind a team as a tenant for the stadium.
One interesting type of vision was to simply gift a site to a developer....provided they build a Stadium they could have the surrounding lands to develop as they saw fit.....hotel, office, restaurant, shopping....etc etc...60 million for a site.....hmmmmm

[Empire]

With all of the complaining about taxpayer money and "show me the business case" attitude, you would think someone would suggest a STADIUM FUND.

Most people still seem to be missing the point. A stadium is an opportunity to pull the community together. This town couldn't be more fractured with STV / heritage types squaring off against pro development types. Don't spend taxpayers money unless it is in my neighbourhood types against visionary "can do attitude types". This is an opportunity to build community spirit and all work toward a common goal. The oval will run a deficit of approx. $400,000 a year and we are making that work.

We have very little sport infrastructure for a city of 400,000.
We have a very high obesity rate.
We have a city that people want to come to for events.
We have a huge volunteer base.
We have a proven track record with the Brier, 2 Canada Games, World Juniors hockey/volleyball.
We have a large corporate base that should be very enthusiast about supporting this project.

What is the problem?

[FuzzyWuz]

Originally Posted by ATL Stadium

It did seem that the committee members that I spoke with were set on the 10+10 idea for seating.....

That's depressing. Wish there were a well thought out response to that. Perhaps in the form of a single sentence with 500 words. Now who do we know who could compose one of those?????

[spaustin]

Originally Posted by Empire

We have very little sport infrastructure for a city of 400,000.
We have a very high obesity rate.
We have a city that people want to come to for events.
We have a huge volunteer base.
We have a proven track record with the Brier, 2 Canada Games, World Juniors hockey/volleyball.
We have a large corporate base that should be very enthusiast about supporting this project.

What is the problem?

We do have a shortage of sports infrastructure in a number of areas, but the question is do we need a 10,000+ stadium to address that? I don't think many amateur events require that level of infrastructure and we could build a lot more for the same cost. In fact, investing the money from a stadium in smaller atheletic facilities would actually do a lot more for our health problems then building one big stadium (no one gets fit while eating hotdogs and drinking beer in the stands watching semi-professionals play). I'm interested to know how many uses are anticipated that will actually require significant spectator seating. I think there were some rough estimates in the the Phase 1 and if memory serves it wasn't all that many events/days.

The more I hear about the case for a stadium, the more I find myself troubled. Building this to get FIFA is fine, but then what? If it's outside the Downtown the univeristies have said they won't use it so then what's left? A handful of concerts, a few regional championships and the odd larger event that we can attract. It would be great to have a CFL team, but the reality is we're still too small a market to support one. With Halifax's relatively large corporate base, we're well setup to grab one in the future (much better than Moncton in fact), but with just under 400,000 people I just don't see the current market being large enough to sustain professional football.

For this to be realistic, I think HRM needs partners onside, specifically the universities since they are really the only dependable tenant, the business community and support from upper level governments. Hopefully, we can identify some sustained uses for beyond FIFA. If we can't meet those criteria, that $60-$100 million or whatever it ends up costing might be better spent elsewhere. The convention centre feels like a much safer bet to me at this point, but I'll wait to see the final results.

[q12]

Originally Posted by spaustin

The more I hear about the case for a stadium, the more I find myself troubled. Building this to get FIFA is fine, but then what? If it's outside the Downtown the univeristies have said they won't use it so then what's left? A handful of concerts, a few regional championships and the odd larger event that we can attract. It would be great to have a CFL team, but the reality is we're still too small a market to support one. With Halifax's relatively large corporate base, we're well setup to grab one in the future, but with just under 400,000 people I just don't see the market being here to sustain professional football right now.

What are you going on about?
We are larger than Regina and they have a CFL team.
Why would we not have a market to sustain a CFL team?
It ain't the NFL it's only the CFL.

This sounds like one of those comments that keep putting the NO in Nova Scotia

[cormiermax]

I don't think anyone can logically say Halifax cant support a CFL franchise. We are a major Canadian city, more than double the population of Regina, the Maritimes have almost double the population of Saskatchewan in a much smaller area. There is not a single doubt in my mind Halifax would have any trouble what so ever in hosting a CFL franchise.

[spaustin]

Originally Posted by q12

What are you going on about?
We are larger than Regina and they have a CFL team.
Why would we not have a market to sustain a CFL team?
It ain't the NFL it's only the CFL.

This sounds like one of those comments that keep putting the NO in Nova Scotia

Comparing to Regina is like saying you can put an NFL team anywhere because Green Bay has one. Regina is an outlier because football is their thing in a way that's just not true elsewhere in the country. When I lived in Calgary I went to a Stamps-Riders game and there were as many Riders fans as Stampeders in the crowd. It was like half of Saskatchewan got together and drove to Calgary for the game. I don't think that level of devotion is a realistic starting point for Halifax. Ottawa is more than twice our size and they've lost their CFL team what, twice now and Montreal nearly lost theirs before they downsized to a rightsized facility. It's a different reality in Eastern Canada. I would love to see Halifax get a team, but I kind of think it'll be 20 years before we'll be big enough to support it.

So if a CFL team isn't sustainable in the here and now, we should make our decision regarding a stadium on what is. We can always upgrade the facility or build another one in 20 years (20 years is a good time horizon for a Stadium II). That's why I think we need our universities to buy into this. If they're not on board, who's going to use it?

[TheNovaScotian]

The reason the Roughriders have such a devoted fan base is there is nothing else to cheer for, much the same as Atlantic Canada, Ottawa is squished between Toronto and Montreal. there is no reason at 400,000 with 1.5 million all within a 6 hour drive, Halifax can support a CFL team. Halifax has a good football following thanks largely to SMU so your not now, but sometime down the road philosophy is why we are in this mess in the first place it going to be 2012 in a few months

The university's will come around after its built, if it is at their disposal for the Vanier Cup or other big games, once pieces of infrastructure like this are built around here people tend to accept it and start using it fairly quickly, the hard part it to get all the doubters of this city and region out of the way of the process and let experts do the math see what is appropriate for A city this size because the average person doesn't know enough to make the right choice

[someone123]

Originally Posted by TheNovaScotian

The reason the Roughriders have such a devoted fan base is there is nothing else to cheer for, much the same as Atlantic Canada, Ottawa is squished between Toronto and Montreal. there is no reason at 400,000 with 1.5 million all within a 6 hour drive, Halifax can support a CFL team. Halifax has a good football following thanks largely to SMU so your not now, but sometime down the road philosophy is why we are in this mess in the first place it going to be 2012 in a few months

I agree. Ottawa also has an NHL team.

I don't think it makes sense to go crazy building an elaborate stadium with no immediate plans for using it appropriately, but I do think that a CFL team is a totally reasonable goal.

[halifaxboyns]

Glad to hear there is a way to contribute...I'd like to know how to sign up for this account and then I will participate.

What time is the meeting? 7pm Atlantic time? That might be a problem since I won't be home...but after an hour I could participate.

[fenwick16]

In my opinion, the HRM should design a 20,000 permanent seat, low-cost stadium and then try to get provincial, federal and private funding. Build it with most of the seats between the goal-lines so additional seats can be easily and cheaply added (if it is sunken then people could even sit on the grassy hills of the stadium). If the HRM can't get funding then don't build the stadium for now; just wait as long as it takes, even if it takes 10 years and it means that Halifax can't host the FIFA Women's Cup. At least then the HRM will have tried to build a stadium that makes sense to build and the $375K will not be wasted by designing a 10,000 seat stadium that the HRM doesn't need. It will also attract attention that a 10,000 seat stadium won't (which is important for fund raising).

Building a 10,000 permanent seat stadium at any location other than SMU doesn't make sense to me. Halifax won't be able to get a MLS team, and 10,000 seats is more than adequate for the lower level NASL. My prediction is that if Halifax builds a 10,000 seat stadium at Shannon Park then it will likely never be expanded because it won't attract a CFL team. So design it for 20,000 seats and then make a legitimate effort to raise the funds.

In spite of what some people will say, a stadium more elaborate than the BMO Field is not required for the CFL. The Toronto Argonauts would do well in an expanded BMO Field (better than in the Rogers Centre).

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by cormiermax

I don't think anyone can logically say Halifax cant support a CFL franchise. We are a major Canadian city, more than double the population of Regina, the Maritimes have almost double the population of Saskatchewan in a much smaller area. There is not a single doubt in my mind Halifax would have any trouble what so ever in hosting a CFL franchise.

I've been living in Toronto the last 10 years and football people here seem to feel the same way. We want a 10th team after Ottawa, and we want it in Halifax. Halifax is not too small. Lets not forget that Edmonton built Commonwealth Stadium in 1978 when they had about 480,000 people.

I find it astonishing that Haligonians are debating whether to build a 10,000 seater expandable to 20,000. There are high schools in the States that have stadiums bigger than that. Halifax needs to stop viewing itself as some puny little outpost on the Atlantic. There are 400,000 people in metro and another 1.4 million people in the region.

28,000 should be the capacity sought. Build it right the first time; you don't want another Moncton Stadium. Moncton did a great job for such a little city, but all their stadium shows is that they're not quite there yet.

[Waye Mason]

So the paper today say 10,000 permanent, 10,000 temp.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1268042.html