New Downtown Calgary Arena

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by lubicon

30 000 seating for the stadium is pathetic. Needs to be 40 in my opinion, and expandable to 50 for special events. Anything less is a waste of money.

At least 40K. I know that the trend seems to be going to toward smaller stadiums, but 30K just seems to little...even if they can expand it to 50K.

[MalcolmTucker]

I don't understand why people think the 'ticket tax' amount is coming from the public. The amount from the owners is coming from the public too using a similar justification.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

I don't understand why people think the 'ticket tax' amount is coming from the public. The amount from the owners is coming from the public too using a similar justification.

Agreed. The ticket tax is one of the things I like most about the proposal, it's a fair set up, and a useful way to help fund the project.

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

I don't understand why people think the 'ticket tax' amount is coming from the public. The amount from the owners is coming from the public too using a similar justification.

Is the concern the upfront financing of the ticket tax amount? How many years will it take to recover the full ticket tax portion, and who fronts the money before then?

[MalcolmTucker]

Since it would be a dedicated fee to paying back a loan, 1) If it came from the city, it wouldn't count towards the city debt limit, similar to Enmax debt I believe. 2) Since you have a dedicated revenue stream, the interest rate even on the private market will be ridiculously low.

I don't understand why this seems to be a point of contention when the CRL is the big thing that is up in the air.

[Me&You]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

Better for whom?

Everyone involved.

A better designed, modern facility with a more spacious concourse and more amenities is better for the fans that attend the games and the ownership group. What's hard to understand about that?

I suppose you want more seats to make it more "accessible" to more fans? I'm sure if a proper business case could be made, that would be the case. I have no doubt that the ownership / operating group (and all of those involved in spec'ing every new arena in the last 20 or so years) have looked at all of the numbers in every possible way and all came to the same conclusion; the ideal capacity for an arena is 18-19k. Any capacity larger than that requires even more amenities to accommodate more people that are filling lower value seats. Not sure where this isn't making sense...

[Denscafon]

I might be beating a dead horse by bringing this back up but after seeing the announcement yesterday, I just can't see this really working in West village even more so and Railtown just makes WAY more sense now.

My main issues are:
1)This new development doesn't address the need for realignment of Bow trail/Crowchild and just makes that situation worse. We should be realigning the roads first, then doing remediation, THEN figure out what to build there. Not the other way around.

2)The lack of parking is also a massive concern. Leaving cars at your office is not a solution.

3)Isolating the "future developments" from the rest of Downtown due to being on the other side of this sports complex will just cause havoc for getting in and out of that area and also makes it less desirable to live/work there.

4) The battle of who pays for remediation is not at all addressed by Ken King.

Compare that with Railtown:

1) With the green line being designed right now, you can have the station built right into the sports complex.

2) Even after all the parking is gone, there's parking nearby at stampede for overflow

3) No need to have the stadium issue get involved with the remediation. It still needs to be done no matter what, but throwing in a 3rd party just makes it all the more difficult

Of course railtown has issues as well such as the city not owning the land (could be bought for the purpose of the green line) and relocating the bus depot there but to me those issues can be resolved more easily compared to the hurdles that west village has.

I'm also not thrilled with how Ken King and company want this to be funded. CRL to me is a bit of an accounting smoke screen as in the end, tax payers still pay for it. This can be explained on this link
http://www.taxpayer.com/commentaries/ab--revitalization-levy-sleight-of-hand

If they want our tax dollars other than the field house money, I would say the flames would need to give a share of ticket revenue. Would you invest in something but not get any equity in return? No, and nor should the city let Flames ownership push them to doing that too. Saying that the complex is a City asset is stupid as that means the city is liable for everything then and also are stuck with a useless money sucking asset in 20-30 years just like the saddledome will be soon.

[Bigtime]

I think the neatest thing about the Railtown lands was the eventual inclusion of high speed rail and the station being pretty much next to it along 9th or 10th avenue. How cool would it be to be able to go up to Edmonton or have their fans able to come down here to watch a game?

[The Urbanist]

Here's what I like about the proposal:

1) The efficiencies gained through a combined facility.
2) The proposed seating layout for the arena.

That's pretty much it. Here's what I don't understand - once the clean-up is completed, this is a prime riverfront parcel that doesn't require a stadium/arena to activate it. If the government is going to cover the clean-up cost, shouldn't the land be marketed/leased similar to what CMLC is doing in the east village? If this proposal goes through, I hope CMLC has a strong voice regarding how the stadium/arena fits into the West Village. The West Village should not be built around the stadium/arena, but quite the opposite. What happens in 30-40 years from now, when this amenity is too old and needs to be replaced?

Lastly, to allow for a appropriate pedestrian realm, Bow Trail needs to be relocated away from the waterfront. This is a non-starter IMO.

[googspecial]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I think the neatest thing about the Railtown lands was the eventual inclusion of high speed rail and the station being pretty much next to it along 9th or 10th avenue. How cool would it be to be able to go up to Edmonton or have their fans able to come down here to watch a game?

Well, that's still a possibility if/when HSR ever gets built. Would just have to transfer to the LRT to get to the arena..

[artvandelay]

Wooster, his is a good, thoughtful analysis (O-Tac and others, please take note) and I largely agree.

The only point where I'd differ is on your take on the funding proposal.

Originally Posted by Wooster

$200 million cash from the owners

Quite simply, not enough in my opinion. This is an $890 million project not counting remediation. Less than 1/4 of the facility cost, and (far) less than 1/5 the overall project cost. We know the ownership group CAN afford to pay more, they just don't WANT to.

This is a bit of a misrepresentation. Regardless of how the ticket levy is financed, the CS&E will be footing the bill for that as well. So the total give from Flames ownership is $450 million or 51% of the total project cost.

Originally Posted by Wooster

$240 million CRL

As it's been talked about before, expecting to pay back a $240 million loan through new tax revenue in this area is tough with the entire area developing out with taxable high density uses. It's made much more challenging when roughly half the land is taken up by much lower tax paying (or no tax paying uses) like a stadium/arena (the Saddledome pays on a non-market assessment of $80 million, is also exempt from business tax and provincial portion of the property tax I believe - I could be a bit off there based on my recollection - but it does not pay full freight property tax for sure.).

Also, Ken King's explanation of how a CRL works wasn't quite correct. The way it works is that you draw a boundary around an area. The existing tax base continues to flow to general City (and Provincial revenue). The notion is development couldn't occur but for public investment to enable it. It usually has to meet a definition of "blight" (East Village easily met this definition). The new tax revenue from development that couldn't otherwise occur goes to pay back the loan. The secret not many people know is that the Province also forgoes its portion of the education property tax that the City transfers to the Province.

There is also an opportunity cost to the City in having that land sit blighted as it is. Also, property tax revenues will be heavily dependent not only on built density in the district but also use, as commercial achieves much higher values than residential. The analysis that needs to be done is a DCF comparing tax receipts under three scenarios: 1) redevelopment with an area complex, 2) redevelopment under the ARP, and 3) status quo. The advantage you have with the Flames' plan is that you have a private investor willing to pour $450 million into the area right off the bat, and that a portion of the planned development will be commercial in use.

Originally Posted by Wooster

The issue is that we are not for example competing against other jurisdictions for this kind of urban development in and around the core. There is fairly finite demand for high density residential development in and around downtown. For every building built here it means likely one less built in say the Beltline, Eau Claire (where the revenue would flow to general revenue), or worse East Village, where it is still a long way from finished and we still are exposed to debt risk as taxpayers. It may induce some demand that would otherwise not occur, but what it really does is increase the land supply of urban redevelopment sites where we currently do not lack land supply - it disperses roughly the same demand over more land area and an additional community. Without West Village, we could likely go 30 years without even coming close to running out of sites for high rise residential, hotel or office space in and around downtown. Further, in a CRL the risk is entirely the City's and taxpayer's.

Agreed. Cannibalization of other development areas is a certainly a concern. Especially the East Village, which is already heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. I agree that there is no shortage of residential development sites in the city centre, but office sites are starting to become scarce in the core. It might make the most sense to develop the West Village as an office node first and foremost.

Originally Posted by Wooster

Ticket Tax

It was a massive mistake in my opinion to not suggest the owners were going to backstop the loan for the ticket tax. I suppose we would assume the City would finance the ticket tax. I believe the user pay component is sound, it should absolutely be backstopped by the owners, not the City. If it is planned to be backstopped by the owners, really bad not to say that today with utmost clarity.

They didn't say how this would be structured, and when asked yesterday King said that it could be commercially financed. Perhaps the City could borrow at the Alberta Capital Finance Authority rate and charge a .50 spread to CS&E? Regardless, the structure of how this ticket levy is financed isn't overly material.

Originally Posted by Wooster

Environmental Remediation and other infrastructure

This cost is not yet pinned down, but KK suggested it should be a City/Provincial/Federal responsibility. It could be a big cost, it maybe smaller as KK suggested based on their research, but right now is a huge unknown. Again, if it's City ownership, Flames are indemnified and City takes all the risk?

As stated before, remediation should be viewed as a sunk cost. It's something that needs to happen whether a stadium occupies the site, it's developed according to the ARP, or it continues to be occupied by car dealerships. It's absolutely ridiculous in my mind that Domtar cannot be held liable for the cleanup of the site, but so be it.

[izend]

Originally Posted by The Urbanist

Here's what I like about the proposal:

1) The efficiencies gained through a combined facility.
2) The proposed seating layout for the arena.

That's pretty much it. Here's what I don't understand - once the clean-up is completed, this is a prime riverfront parcel that doesn't require a stadium/arena to activate it. If the government is going to cover the clean-up cost, shouldn't the land be marketed/leased similar to what CMLC is doing in the east village? If this proposal goes through, I hope CMLC has a strong voice regarding how the stadium/arena fits into the West Village. The West Village should not be built around the stadium/arena, but quite the opposite. What happens in 30-40 years from now, when this amenity is too old and needs to be replaced?

Lastly, to allow for a appropriate pedestrian realm, Bow Trail needs to be relocated away from the waterfront. This is a non-starter IMO.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was thought I had read that the clean up requirements for residential vs commercial construction are different with residential being more strict?

[artvandelay]

Originally Posted by Denscafon

Compare that with Railtown:

1) With the green line being designed right now, you can have the station built right into the sports complex.

2) Even after all the parking is gone, there's parking nearby at stampede for overflow

3) No need to have the stadium issue get involved with the remediation. It still needs to be done no matter what, but throwing in a 3rd party just makes it all the more difficult

Of course railtown has issues as well such as the city not owning the land (could be bought for the purpose of the green line) and relocating the bus depot there but to me those issues can be resolved more easily compared to the hurdles that west village has.

Railtown is not feasible for a number of reasons.

1) The land is privately held by Remington, zoned, and readily developable. The West Village land is worthless and a liability. Add $60-$100 million in land acquisition cost to the project right off the bat.

2)In order to fit a stadium/fieldhouse on the site, you need to build over the tracks. CP has said many times that they will not allow this. So unless you throw a boatload of cash at CP, it's likely not happening.

3)After jamming an arena and stadium on the site, there will be little land left over for supporting amenities and development to subsidize the rest of the complex.

[The Urbanist]

Originally Posted by izend

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was thought I had read that the clean up requirements for residential vs commercial construction are different with residential being more strict?

You are correct, but this proposal has a residential component.

[GreenSPACE]

This sounds pretty much like the deal we ended up with in Edmonton. Neither perfect nor entirely terrible.

[nick.flood]

delete

[Denscafon]

Originally Posted by nick.flood

A quick set of the facility on the Railtown lands. Tight but not impossible.

Demolish the bus depot and you got even more space to work with. But ya, even without demolishing it, could work out if u tweak the design a bit. Or you could just reroute the train tracks closer to the edge there for a section to get more width.

[nick.flood]

delete

[WhipperSnapper]

Seeing this vision makes me realize that the West Village may not be the best location. The design of the fieldhouse is clearly compromised to fit within the shadowing policy.

[MalcolmTucker]

So with this:

Source: http://www.realestateforums.com/ref/old/calgaryref/docs/2010/b4_matthias_tita.pdf

And this:

Source: http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/pd/Documents/Publications/west-village-arp.pdf

And this:
Source: http://calgarynext.com/location.php

It looks like you only miss out on the Promenade Precinct for redevelopment potential.

I don't think one should mistake the '750 residences' as part of the proposal as a limit, it likely refers to somewhat directly related development to the Next building.