Halifax Stadium Discussion

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by someone123

I have never seen a suburban facility where tens of thousands of people were able to leave in a timely fashion. Without exception it's been gridlock, often for an hour or more just to get out of the parking lot. I would not assume that proximity to one or multiple highways will solve this, but having a mix of modes might help a lot.

In the case of Ottawa a highway situated directly next to Scotiabank Centre does nothing to alleviate the traffic either going to or coming from events. A normal drive without traffic is 25 minutes and on game nights it's usually an hour. That doesn't include walking from wherever you've parked to the actual arena itself.

Mix modes do help to a degree but they're not overly helpful when dealing with suburban setups. OC Transpo provides direct shuttle buses from downtown to the arena but they're often stuck on the same highways as the rest of the people driving are. Even with HOV lanes primarily for buses they still end up on the same roads once they reach Kanata anyway. That, and you're pressed up against four people for 35+ minutes. The ride back isn't much better.

Using simple assumptions of the CFL's audience base (older, vehicle-driving) (Source) it's not surprising that the more urban venues in the league (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) are having difficulty getting fans out to games. It feels like fans simply don't want to make the trek into the cities. Comments in this thread regarding vehicle access and parking on-site supports my assumption to a degree, as does MFL's desire to build a parking garage with the stadium.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Mix modes do help to a degree but they're not overly helpful when dealing with suburban setups. OC Transpo provides direct shuttle buses from downtown to the arena but they're often stuck on the same highways as the rest of the people driving are. Even with HOV lanes primarily for buses they still end up on the same roads once they reach Kanata anyway. That, and you're pressed up against four people for 35+ minutes. The ride back isn't much better.

Using simple assumptions of the CFL's audience base (older, vehicle-driving) it's not surprising that the more urban venues in the league (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) are having difficulty getting fans out to games. It feels like fans simply don't want to make the trek into the cities. Comments in this thread regarding vehicle access and parking on-site supports my assumption.

Different people will choose different options depending on what works for them. Some people can't bike or walk, some don't have a car, some live far away so they will drive, etc. I assume traffic will be bad whether the stadium is built at Shannon Park or Dartmouth Crossing. But at least at Shannon Park you might have options other than waiting behind 4,000 vehicles to get onto the highway.

Getting to Shannon Park by car from the other suburbs or rural areas is nothing like driving into downtown Vancouver or Toronto, and marginally different from Dartmouth Crossing aside from the current vehicle access to the site itself which will have to be expanded. I also have a feeling that the CFL could appeal to wider demographics in Halifax because there are no comparable alternatives along the lines of MLS or NHL.

The ferry is a particularly nice option for a bunch of reasons. It is way more pleasant to be on the upper deck of the ferry than packed on a bus, it's pretty, and it works well for visitors. The ferries could also dump people off in 3 different locations. And theoretically they could be chartered for the event; there could be more than just city ferries. A lot of people will take ferries even if they are not interested in a bus.

[JHikka]

Oh I definitely agree. Shannon Park is a much better option over Dartmouth Crossing for a number of reasons, transportation options being the major one.

Shannon Park is nowhere near as suburban as DC would have been and that's a definite positive.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

there could be more than just city ferries. A lot of people will take ferries even if they are not interested in a bus.

This is very true. On game days, I could see some of the sightseeing tour boats advertising trips to the stadium site as charters.

How late into the season do the tourism operators run their boats? Would they consider extending their season on the weekends for the football crowd???

[Colin May]

I have been to many soccer stadia in the UK and 15 minutes after a game the place is dead, and many had no parking but were in a densely populated area with quick access to local road/rail transit. A crowd of 50,000 quickly dissipates.
Shannon Park with a small crowd is a much different kettle of fish.

[JHikka]

After stadium fiasco in Winnipeg, academic warns Halifax of the risks
Posted on October 30, 2018 by 3Down Staff

“The outcome here is still mixed,” Distasio said of Winnipeg’s stadium. “I think the vast majority of people still appreciate that we have a wonderful new stadium but it has come with a price tag that we weren’t necessarily prepared for from the beginning.

“Careful financial planning and oversight is absolutely critical.”

Distasio says large projects like stadiums are often polarizing.

“They draw a tremendous amount of public interest and often that interest can be polarizing with either very big supporters or those who are vehemently against any kind of public dollars flowing into what’s seen as the pockets of rich and wealthy owners,” he said.

http://3downnation.com/2018/10/30/stadium-fiasco-winnipeg-academic-warns-hailfax-risks/

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JHikka

“The outcome here is still mixed,” Distasio said of Winnipeg’s stadium. “I think the vast majority of people still appreciate that we have a wonderful new stadium but it has come with a price tag that we weren’t necessarily prepared for from the beginning.

“Careful financial planning and oversight is absolutely critical.”

I agree with this but then again I feel like you could say this about any project ever. There are well run projects and poorly run projects. The article doesn't really give any details about how to discern which kind of project we are looking at. Hopefully if a stadium is built it will be managed well.

Where I disagree with some people is that I don't feel like $200M is a huge make-or-break level of spending for the city, much less the province. I checked and Halifax's annual GDP is now over $20B. The city budget is over $1B. This is not to say that the city should be cavalier with its spending but people in Halifax have a habit of overestimating the economic impact of spending (and underestimating inflation over the years!). The city can afford many different $200M projects, whether we're talking about transit, a stadium, or a convention centre. And in fact it will need to start building projects in this size range and bigger if people there want infrastructure suited to a capital city with 500,000 people. If people and politicians there stick their heads in the sand and timidly build stuff for 1950's Halifax they will find that their quality of life will suffer.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Good points and a well thought out answer (as usual). As locations go, I actually like the Shannon Park idea better than DC, it is definitely the nicer location and I think the ferry aspect would be quite nice for people coming from DT Halifax (and maybe DT Dartmouth and Woodside). I'm just trying to look at it more pragmatically - though in the end the 'sexy' solution would still likely be the best solution (also in terms of making the stadium more of an iconic symbol of Halifax rather than yet another boring suburban stadium).

Originally Posted by someone123

Well there are 5 ferries and the downtown Halifax-Dartmouth crossing takes only around 10 minutes, so they can probably do around 2 round trips to Shannon Park per hour. That's about 8,000 people over a 2 hour period. The real throughput will be much less than this but there will be no transportation "silver bullet". If the ferries handle 10-30% that will be great, and there is an option to add more ferries.

I am wondering, though, if we can practically say that there are 5 ferries available? Regular service to DT Dartmouth and Woodside would have to be maintained, which would take 2 out of the mix. And actually to make it a more viable alternative, a shuttle between the stadium and at least Woodside should be added (and ideally DT Dartmouth, though it would be the lower priority of the 3). Buying more ferries would be nice, but the costs of purchase, maintenance, and staffing them might be prohibitive (I like the idea, though).

Lots of people will be able to cycle to parts of Dartmouth or across the Macdonald. Google Maps says that it's only about a 50 minute walk from downtown Dartrmouth to the Shannon Park stadium site. In the overall scheme of this project, improved pedestrian and cycling infrastructure will cost peanuts. It will also be more viable because these events will mostly be happening from spring to fall.

Bus service is better for Shannon Park because it's closer which means shorter trips and more throughput. Shannon Park is only 2.5 km from the bridge terminal.

50 minutes can be quite a long walk, especially if the weather is questionable, and some of the areas may not be the best to walk through (or at least that used to be the case several years ago), so I question whether that would be a popular alternative for people.

In terms of cycling, either location will be a good bike ride for somebody from anywhere in Halifax, but especially the further north-west regions of the city, but DC is only 15 extra minutes of cycling from the MacD bridge, so I'm not sure if SP is a clear winner in that realm. Besides it's all relative as if you are cycling from Westphal or Woodside then DC is clearly closer - I know it's not a real argument as the population in these areas is much less than that of Halifax, but when I'm cycling (or driving) an extra 15 minutes is nothing really.

There will be further traffic studies and I am sure they will need to expand the road access but I doubt that Dartmouth Crossing would have been ready to handle the ~100% vehicle traffic going to and leaving the stadium as is. We cannot really say much about this without having traffic studies for both.

I have never seen a suburban facility where tens of thousands of people were able to leave in a timely fashion. Without exception it's been gridlock, often for an hour or more just to get out of the parking lot. I would not assume that proximity to one or multiple highways will solve this, but having a mix of modes might help a lot.

Fair enough, wait for a traffic study, but by layman's review, there are more access points to major highways and larger capacity roads within the DC area to get to those highways than Shannon Park. DC is designed to handle large traffic volumes whereas Shannon Park was only designed to service a small neighborhood. The numbers from the study will prove or disprove this assertion, of course.

If Shannon Park is done well we will only see 30 or 40% of people come by vehicle and they will carpool, perhaps averaging 3 per vehicle. This works out to about 3,000 cars. And ideally there will be other stuff to do down there so people will arrive 1-3 hours before a game and not all need to immediately depart.

I'm not sure that this will be the case, actually. And from the sound of it there is not an immediate plan to put other stuff in there to keep people occupied for a few hours before a game, unless I missed something (admittedly I didn't take the time to read every detail of every post).

I do admire your optimism, however.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by someone123

I agree with this but then again I feel like you could say this about any project ever. There are well run projects and poorly run projects. The article doesn't really give any details about how to discern which kind of project we are looking at. Hopefully if a stadium is built it will be managed well.

There was skepticism about the pricetag for Investors Group Field right from day one. IGF is, by CFL standards, a fairly opulent venue. It includes design elements that drove up the cost but were by no means necessary, most notably the huge steel canopies over the sideline seats. So the final pricetag reflected that.

The best analogy I can make here is IGF is like if you go car shopping and your significant other tells you to keep the pricetag to $30,000 or less. So you go out and spend $30,000 to the penny. But to meet that bar you get a car without wheels, without headlights, without a radio, without a windshield. You knew all along you'd have to add that stuff later driving up the cost after the fact, but by golly, you met that $30,000 price limit and that's what matters.

Same thing with IGF. We got our 33,500 seat stadium for $210 million as promised, but then we had to spend a bunch of money afterwards to finish the job.

It's best summed up in this recent Free Press column aptly titled They lied, we believed them; in the end we got a good deal on a nice stadium.

Fortunately for Halifax, you aren't subject to the sheer weirdness of the political process in Manitoba. And by all accounts, you are aiming for a much more modest, reasonably sized venue which will limit the risk involved. So I don't think there's much of a parallel between what happened with IGF and what's likely to happen in Halifax.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

As locations go, I actually like the Shannon Park idea better than DC, it is definitely the nicer location and I think the ferry aspect would be quite nice for people coming from DT Halifax (and maybe DT Dartmouth and Woodside).

Nicer perhaps in terms of ocean views but less so with the scenic view of the power plant and high-tension towers on the south side. Add in the chill off the harbour and it is not so nice except on a hot day.

The ferry idea is certainly going to be ballyhooed but it is really not going to make much difference. First of all it starts from downtown so first you have to get there, which isn't easy and is best done on foot, so that limits the number of customers significantly. I seriously doubt that anyone coming from Woodside or points further out would use a ferry to go to Shannon Park.

The problem with a ferry option is postgame. While people can stagger their arrival times somewhat, everyone wants out after the game is over. There is no way our ferries can handle a few thousand people in any kind of useful way. We see it when there are events downtown - the ferries are jammed and get very backed up, leaving lots of very frustrated people cooling their heels for hours or forced to find another way home. Ferries are one of those things that are far better in theory than in practice.

Cycling will only be an option for a small number in either location, unless HRM decides to spend a few hundred million to sling a bicycle lane under the MacKay Bridge. As bizarre as it sounds, they bend over backwards for the cycling lobby in this town so nothing would surprise me.

Walking would necessarily be limited to those on the Dartmouth side and even there remember that since the location is at sea level, the walk to wherever home is is uphill all the way.

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Fair enough, wait for a traffic study, but by layman's review, there are more access points to major highways and larger capacity roads within the DC area to get to those highways than Shannon Park. DC is designed to handle large traffic volumes whereas Shannon Park was only designed to service a small neighborhood.

You are exactly right of course. And we can be sure that HRM, if left to its own devices, will not put in adequate infrastructure to provide acceptable capacity and access, nor will they be likely to build an overpass to eliminate the level rail crossing on the main access road. But I get the sense that the fix is already in, and that the mayor is cheerleading for this very hard in private, so that any studies will be skewed to support his point of view.

Taxpayers, hold on to your wallets. Might be time to start looking for property in Elmsdale.

[q12]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Taxpayers, hold on to your wallets. Might be time to start looking for property in Elmsdale.

Halifax council moves ahead with CFL stadium proposal

By STAFF StarMetro Halifax
Tues., Oct. 30, 2018

HALIFAX—Halifax regional council has voted unanimously in favour of a staff report on a business case for a CFL stadium at Shannon Park.

Council first met with Maritime Football Limited Partnership (MFLP) in June of this year.

The partnership – comprising AMJ Campbell Van Lines president Bruce Bowser and former Arizona Coyotes co-owners Anthony LeBlanc and Gary Drummond – is in talks with the Canadian Football League to secure an expansion franchise for Halifax for the 2021 season, conditional on a stadium.

The group has since met with Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) staff, provincial staff and Premier Stephen McNeil.

A report to regional council last week revealed MFLP’s pitch to build a 24,000-seat stadium in Shannon Park, a 38-hectare area on the Dartmouth side of the MacKay Bridge that was used for military housing from the 1950s until the early 2000s.

That pitch was debated at council Tuesday afternoon, where the topic of financing was top of mind, as it still isn’t clear how much public funding would go into the project if HRM were to partner with MFLP.

The report says the stadium would cost $170- to $190 million and proposes a controversial model called tax increment financing (TIF) to pay, at least in part, to build it. A TIF model requires borrowing money upfront and then paying it back through increased property taxes in the surrounding area.

That method was questioned at length at Tuesday’s council meeting. Counc. Steve Adams wondered what would happen if the TIF couldn’t provide enough financing, while Counc. Tim Outhit asked who would carry the debt.

Dube said MFLP would own the stadium and therefore carry the debt.

Further capital could be required from HRM to build the appropriate infrastructure for the development, like roads and transit.

In the report it seemed that HRM would also be on the hook for ongoing repairs and maintenance of the stadium.

Counc. Lisa Blackburn said the potential repair and maintenance obligations gave her pause.

“We're not in the business of running CFL stadiums, and that is something that needs to be clarified," she said at Tuesday’s council meeting.

HRM CAO Jacques Dube said the wording in the wording in the report was “clumsy,” but HRM would not actually have to contribute to those ongoing costs.

MFLP’s capital contribution to the project is not yet clear.

Shannon Park was previously the seat of the Millbrook First Nation, which is in the process of reclaiming about 3 hectares of land in the area.

MFLP will have to get the go-ahead from the First Nation to build their proposed stadium.

Questions around the capital contributions from the province, municipal planning bylaw amendments, and community approval also need to be answered – all of which are now in the hands of HRM staff.

A more detailed business analysis is expected to take about six months.

In the meantime, MFLP has plans to launch a season ticket campaign and a team-naming contest in November.

More to come.

https://www.thestar.com/halifax/2018/10/...ves-ahead-with-cfl-stadium-proposal.html

[c-way-dude]

A stadium built in New Zealand recently with a cost similar to the proposed Halifax stadium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth_Barr_Stadium

[Colin May]

[QUOTE=someone123;8362729 The city budget is over $1B. [/QUOTE]
The HRM operating budget is well under $1 billion.
"Municipal expenditures are forecast to be $760.6m, an increase of $17m from the prior year. Recent arbitration awards have led to significant increases in Police and Fire wages. In addition, the adoption of enhanced Fire Service Standards has led to the hiring of new fire fighters which requires additional funding for training, overtime and personal protective equipment. These costs are absorbable in the short-run, but will crowd-out other productive spending, for example on existing or new infrastructure. "
page 7 of 562 here : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/fil...l/budget-finances/Proposed_2018_Book.pdf

[someone123]

They forecast gross expenditures of $918M. The capital budget is around $130M; not sure if that's included. Either way, it provides a sense of scale of annual municipal expenditures. A capital project with a lifetime of decades and a cost in the $200M range with cost sharing between 2 levels of government and the private sector doesn't work out to a large portion of total expenses.

Back when the Nova Centre was there were hyperbolic articles about how it would bankrupt the province.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

They forecast gross expenditures of $918M. The capital budget is around $130M; not sure if that's included. Either way, it provides a sense of scale of annual municipal expenditures. A capital project with a lifetime of decades and a cost in the $200M range with cost sharing between 2 levels of government and the private sector doesn't work out to a large portion of total expenses.

Back when the Nova Centre was there were hyperbolic articles about how it would bankrupt the province.

The discussion today was more valuable for what was not said than what was said. Outhit almost spilled the beans and his business background informed his questions. I doubt many in the room really understood where he was going.
The development at Dartmouth Crossing cost HRM $0 and policing and fire costs are miniscule. It is a cash cow for HRM.
The HRM pension plan is another significant issue that staff and council choose to ignore; the numbers are somewhat concerning and available to those who know where to look.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by c-way-dude

A stadium built in New Zealand recently with a cost similar to the proposed Halifax stadium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth_Barr_Stadium

Man, that is one ugly structure.

[q12]

Must watch interview with Anthony Leblanc today.

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1527658

Sounds like there could be some news on the concert front with the stadium very soon as well.

[elly63]

Financial details murky as Halifax stadium proposal takes a step forward
Zane Woodford StarMetro Halifax Oct 30 2018

[Colin May]

Are you in favour of increasing HRM liabilities by $170 million to bring a stadium to HRM ?
1) Yes, it's only a number
2) I don't know. What is a liability ?
3) No. Are you out of your mind ?
4) Can I make a donation ? I just found $10 down the back of the sofa

[elly63]