Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3

[someone123]

Not sure if this one has been posted yet or not:

Originally Posted by bluenoser

Halifax Mayor Mulls Wanderers Grounds As Home For CFL Team https://huddle.today/2023/02/16/hali...-for-cfl-team/

My interpretation is that this is the no-brainer scenario which should or likely will eventually happen, particularly now that the city is growing faster. In fact it doesn't require the CFL at all; there's plenty of demand for a basic outdoor venue with permanent facilities that holds 20,000 people. And if Halifax ends up with that I doubt the CFL would refuse to set up a team there (which IMO isn't a big deal either way). I think the private ownership group and mixed development Shannon Park $200-300M stadium stuff might have detracted from this more realistic plan.

[esquire]

A new shared stadium in Halifax seems like a much safer bet with the Wanderers around. But while the location is good, personally I find the current site to be way too cramped for a CFL team. I think you could comfortably expand it up to about 10,000 seats for the CanPL, but I think that's realistically about as far as you can go there.

[esquire]

^ That's a good point, the Wanderers Grounds could never host the Grey Cup. I think 20-22 thousand would effectively be the maximum amount that they could squeeze in there.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ That's a good point, the Wanderers Grounds could never host the Grey Cup. I think 20-22 thousand would effectively be the maximum amount that they could squeeze in there.

I don't think this is a good way to look at it. This is a part of the public Commons and can be reconfigured. There's really nothing special about the Bengal Lancers' site configuration, Garrison Grounds, alignment of Bell Road, etc. If there were 15,000 seats there that sold out regularly (including for concerts or whatever) then there would eventually be enough political capital to modify that whole area. Just like how they cleared out another part to build a pool or the skating oval or whatever. It's been interesting to see how the Wanderers shifted the political conversation around this public land use.

The incremental expansion can be justified as a public project that is independent from the CFL. They can build something now and then in 5 or 10 years add to it. Just as they built the 6,500 seat mini stadium and are looking at expanding it today. If this isn't good enough for the CFL then so be it but my guess is that's, well, basically just a bad take, and the medium stadium would be strictly better than the small stadium whereas there would have been no progress on an imaginary Grey Cup stadium anywhere in Atlantic Canada.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by someone123

The incremental expansion can be justified as a public project that is independent from the CFL. They can build something now and then in 5 or 10 years add to it. Just as they built the 6,500 seat mini stadium and are looking at expanding it today. If this isn't good enough for the CFL then so be it but my guess is that's, well, basically just a bad take, and the medium stadium would be strictly better than the small stadium whereas there would have been no progress on an imaginary Grey Cup stadium anywhere in Atlantic Canada.

From a CFL standpoint, a smaller stadium that lets the league establish a presence there would probably be fine. But for an owner who has to pay the bills, being able to only host a somewhat compromised, limited capacity Grey Cup game would be a significant sacrifice. Grey Cup games are typically major paydays for teams that can often offset operating losses. Tickets normally range from around $300-$1000 a pop, so there is a lot of money at stake. Maybe a 20,000 seat stadium isn't an insurmountable obstacle, but it doesn't really help the case.

I guess Tim Hortons Field isn't that much bigger (around 24,000 seats), but there is a lot of room for temporary seating/hospitality areas to bump those numbers up.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think this is a good way to look at it. This is a part of the public Commons and can be reconfigured. There's really nothing special about the Bengal Lancers' site configuration, Garrison Grounds, alignment of Bell Road, etc. If there were 15,000 seats there that sold out regularly (including for concerts or whatever) then there would eventually be enough political capital to modify that whole area. Just like how they cleared out another part to build a pool or the skating oval or whatever. It's been interesting to see how the Wanderers shifted the political conversation around this public land use.

The incremental expansion can be justified as a public project that is independent from the CFL. They can build something now and then in 5 or 10 years add to it. Just as they built the 6,500 seat mini stadium and are looking at expanding it today. If this isn't good enough for the CFL then so be it but my guess is that's, well, basically just a bad take, and the medium stadium would be strictly better than the small stadium whereas there would have been no progress on an imaginary Grey Cup stadium anywhere in Atlantic Canada.

I think over by the Oval is a better site for a permanent stadium, but I bet there is no political will for that.

The thing being overlooked when talking about number of seats at the current Wanderers Grounds, is those are temporary portable bleachers. The CFL isn't going to go for a stadium made up entirely of portable benches, no matter how you squeeze them onto that site. A permanent structure takes up a lot more room. Esquire mentioned THF and the 24k seats. And when I say seats, I mean chairs, not benches. Chairs take space. It also has suites, press boxes, actual washrooms, concessions, amenity spaces, locker rooms. It's a large structure that in no way would fit on the Wanderers site, even if you knock down the stables, lawn bowling and close Bell St. The north grandstand would be sitting on top of the museum in order to fit the south side inside of Sackville St.

And honestly, I can't see why the soccer team would want to share a facility with a CFL team that is triple or 4x the seats they need. I think it would be a detriment to the fan experience and hurt ticket sales playing in something that big. They need to come up with a way to build a fan friendly right-sized stadium where they are now and if there is a demand for a CFL stadium, find the right place for it elsewhere.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It's a large structure that in no way would fit on the Wanderers site, even if you knock down the stables, lawn bowling and close Bell St. The north grandstand would be sitting on top of the museum in order to fit the south side inside of Sackville St.

And honestly, I can't see why the soccer team would want to share a facility with a CFL team that is triple or 4x the seats they need. I think it would be a detriment to the fan experience and hurt ticket sales playing in something that big. They need to come up with a way to build a fan friendly right-sized stadium where they are now and if there is a demand for a CFL stadium, find the right place for it elsewhere.

Since Sackville ends at that block anyway (Summer), could it just end one block early (South Park/Bell) and give that road space over to grandstand?

I think there's an opportunity to get creative and build almost a two-sided stadium that could suit both teams needs. The simplest thought I had is, if you build camera stations on either side you could have side sit a few thousand that would be full for soccer, and have the cameras pointing at that so you don't see a 3/4 empty upper tier on TV, and the other side have a larger lower tier, suite/club levels/ and upper tier that can get you to the ~20,000 you need for CFL, and for CFL the cameras point at that so it doesn't look tiny ans barebones compared to the other CFL stadiums.

Then if you refine that a little - Soccer fans love being tight to field on all sides and hate open-ended stadiums like a lot of CFL stadiums are, and there seems to be a solid segment who like being right behind the net. So I think you could do something like taking the Wanderers proposed capacity of ~10,000, and evenly distributing that in a full bowl all around the pitch. At the ends it would be retractable stands that go right down to the soccer net, sitting on top of the CFL endzone. Maybe even cover a good chunk of it, really put in some effort to make this lower tier look good as a standalone stadium. Have a concouse/plaza/party zone at the tops of those endzone seats, you when you retract then you have an elevated viewing area that gives a good view of the filed - thinking THF's south end zone area but higher up. Then you have a relatively higher proportion of you CFL seats in the upper tier (but it wouldn't be as high up as a traditional upper tier if the first tier is lower, so still good viewing). Some of the ideas that go into the "inverted bowl" hockey arena design would play into this I think.

Took a quick attempt at chopping up some perspectives:

Starting point is THF:


Halifax soccer config - lower bowl is half as tall, upper deck is twice as tall, retractable seats out. (obv it would need to wrap better in the corners):


Football config with seats retracted:


Grey cup - with temp stands on top of end zone concourse/plazas:



For the small stand closest to view - you could throw a roof on that and make it the "main" stand for soccer:


And then if/as needed, could go nearly vertical with suites/clubs, like smaller version of the 49er stadium if you don't have the space to extend grandstand back from there. Picture that small mid tier of seats as the roof for the lowers:


One more edit: for an example of a stadium that takes "small lower tier, large upper tier" to the extreme, albeit not because of a phased buildout, check out Pay Pal Park in San Jose:

[someone123]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Since Sackville ends at that block anyway (Summer), could it just end one block early (South Park/Bell) and give that road space over to grandstand?

Yep. There's really nothing set in stone about the street alignments around there and it's all public land. And note with your design that not every part needs to be built at once. They would just have to plan for expansion. It's possible that if they commissioned a good study they'd come up with more creative options more closely tailored to the site.

Another small point is that while there's a bunch of surface and street parking around there, there is also a lot of structured parking in the immediate area including a 500 space garage that was built just to the north of the museum that doesn't appear in the Google view. I think this is actually a fantastic site for a stadium while Shannon Park was problematic, and the right thing for the city is a compact stadium in the urban core (near amenities like restaurants and hotels) that is served by a variety of transport modalities.

For the Wanderers, I would imagine that having an empty upper bowl would be a much smaller concern than having a permanent stadium to play at. And anyway I think this should be conceived of as a municipal stadium if the municipality is paying. If a sports team wants their own stadium they can buy land and build somewhere else, but I don't think that will happen.

[someone123]

A while back I took some CFL stadiums like the one in Hamilton, placed them over the Wanderers Ground, and posted that here. The Hamilton stadium fits in between the current Sackville Street and the museum. And the museum is a small, older postwar building of no limited heritage value and shouldn't be regarded as an unmovable obstacle.

I think anything with more seats than there are now moves the city closer to a CFL team, not farther away. For example if there's a bare-bones 15,000 seat stadium that sells out it will be easier to justify 25,000. This is true for both public land use and spending. I don't think the idea that Halifax should "wait for the perfect proposal" and then pick it makes sense. I think if there had been an incremental plan to develop a municipal stadium going back to 2010 then there would already be a CFL-sized stadium by now.

[JHikka]

BMO a day before and on the day of yesterday's season opener:



Minnesota, on the other hand, got to play with an orange ball last night:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comment...c_home_opener/

[Oilkountry]

Good news for flames fans

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/city-of-c...ames-1.6307747

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Oilkountry

Good news for flames fans

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/city-of-c...ames-1.6307747

Third time's a charm? Fingers crossed.

[Acajack]

In terms of its exterior look the Saddledome is my favourite arena in Canada by a longshot.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In terms of its exterior look the Saddledome is my favourite arena in Canada by a longshot.

Honestly besides the concourse and bathrooms the interior is awesome too. The curved ceiling is beautiful and gives a sense of vertigo. Unique among modern arenas.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Oilkountry

Good news for flames fans

Why do all these lazy ass MSM reporters keep talking to the same one and only guy about arena and stadium building? Moshe Lander, an economist with Concordia University with a research interest in sports and infrastructure probably knows as much as the people posting here. This is the same guy who thought they should build a 30-40k stadium in Halifax. Every article, same guy, same negative BS. No wonder no one trusts MSM anymore.

[MalcolmTucker]

The economics perspective is it almost never makes sense to build an arena. Unfortunately no one runs a large sports facilities makes great communities research practice.

They can only talk to people who they can find.

[J.OT13]

The arena deal was scrapped a little over a year ago because of rising costs, but an arena today will be far more expensive. I don't get it.

Is there anyway to go the Madison Square Garden route and renovate the arena? Obviously, MSG's renos were more expensive than a new arena, but that's the nature of NYC. Is the Saddledome completely unsalvageable?

[esquire]

^ Yeah, you kind of wonder whether the conditions even lend themselves to building a venue now. I mean, it's one thing if the old arena burned down and you needed something stat because you simply had no usable venue. But Calgary does actually have a venue which is up to the job.

If Calgary could barely make the case for a new $600 million arena before, what makes the need so urgent that they have to spend $1 billion or whatever that same arena would cost today? It doesn't really make sense.

[O-tacular]

The Saddledome is approaching a point where it needs a very expensive retrofit that would displace the team. There are structural issues with the roof. CSEC in all of its greedy, lazy incompetence waited so long that now I expect a value engineered HP printer design made of EIFS panels and faux brick. I really wish the Flames ownership would change. Murray Edwards is almost as bad as Eugene Melnick was.

[J.OT13]

It's too bad the City and the Flames didn't take the opportunity for a full renovation when the arena flooded in 2013. The Flames could have played out of Edmonton for a year. At this point, the roof would be the only thing needing major work.