Halifax Stadium Discussion

[elly63]

Randy Ambrosie’s Atlantic Town Hall (Full video)

As part of the last stop of ‘Randy’s Road Trip’, CFL.ca will have exclusive LIVE coverage of Randy Ambrosie’s town hall meeting in Halifax Friday afternoon as he takes questions from fans and media in Atlantic Canada.

[Colin May]

He still wants taxpayer money. It cannot become a reality without taxpayer money.
People in HRM know a scam when they see one.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

He still wants taxpayer money. It cannot become a reality without taxpayer money.
People in HRM know a scam when they see one.

A stadium could be a useful, major piece of public infrastructure. I don't think it's unreasonable for the city to spend some money so that a stadium can be built.

The real problem is that there's a contingent of penny pinchers, libertarians, and/or general curmudgeons who argue against any spending on projects like this without any sense of perspective at all (we get maximum whine volume from them whether it's $1M or $1B). Project promoters and politicians have to dance around the issue of public financing to avoid the wrath of this group, even when it is too early on in a project timeline to know what the costs might be, and no money is committed.

The correct question to ask here is how public financing can be leveraged to get more value for the public. The decision depends on the details. If the city needs to spend $300M on a stadium then it's probably not a good deal. If they only need to kick in $20M, or if they can get significantly better public benefits by contributing something like land or even just waiving taxes and fees then it might be a really good deal. It is foolish to suggest that public spending on a stadium is not worth it without knowing the details.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

If the city needs to spend $300M on a stadium then it's probably not a good deal. If they only need to kick in $20M, or if they can get significantly better public benefits by contributing something like land or even just waiving taxes and fees then it might be a really good deal.

As usual, some naysaying clown got up there and spouted the same ol, same ol negative rhetoric and was so clued out he said the stadium would cost between 200-300 thousand dollars and it wasn't a slip of the tongue.

Also made a moronic statement about moving all the sports teams out of Chicago and having no negligible effect. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and think he may have said financial effect. Guys like that should talk to the older people of Brooklyn and ask them how losing the Dodgers affected Brooklyn.

When Bowser spoke of the stadium, he used the figure of 200 million. That was about what IGF in Winnipeg cost at 33k seats. And why do people keep talking to this idiot Moshe Lander who keeps mentioning a stadium size of 30-40k seats. Has he ever checked out anything on the recent CFL in the eastern markets?

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

The real problem is that there's a contingent of penny pinchers, libertarians, and/or general curmudgeons who argue against any spending on projects like this without any sense of perspective at all (

Funny we never hear from them about funding libraries and theatres, both of which I have no problem funding with my tax dollars

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

The correct question to ask here is how public financing can be leveraged to get more value for the public. The decision depends on the details. If the city needs to spend $300M on a stadium then it's probably not a good deal. If they only need to kick in $20M, or if they can get significantly better public benefits by contributing something like land or even just waiving taxes and fees then it might be a really good deal. It is foolish to suggest that public spending on a stadium is not worth it without knowing the details.

Correct, and they never insinuated anything like our soccer troll friend is suggesting.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by elly63

Also made a moronic statement about moving all the sports teams out of Chicago and having no negligible effect. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and think he may have said financial effect. Guys like that should talk to the older people of Brooklyn and ask them how losing the Dodgers affected Brooklyn.

The other thing is that major sports teams have some value beyond the immediately calculable revenue (e.g. higher national profile), and the stadium can be used for more than just CFL games. Admittedly, this might be a bit hard to quantify. At the end of the day, not everything can be quantified, and if decisions are made based 100% on dollar and cents calculations they're probably not as good as what would be possible with a bit of careful judgement.

Hopefully the CFL promoters are trying to find other uses for the stadium and bring together other interested parties. For example, the universities might be able to use the stadium, and it could be used for concerts and other one-off events.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by elly63

Correct, and they never insinuated anything like our soccer troll friend is suggesting.

I did not support the soccer stadium proposal when it was making the rounds of HRM 5-10 years ago. Glasgow won the bid and then had massive cost overruns.
I didn't support the Commonwealth games boondoggle.
The CFL promoter wants a deal like Ottawa and he claims it would be 'revenue neutral' but refuses to explain what 'revenue neutral' means. You can tell a shyster when she/he consistently refuses to get into the financing aspects of a deal.
Here is my guess :
No deed transfer tax on any property sold in the area to be developed
No building permit fees
No property taxes or fixed amount of property taxes in the area to be
developed
No GST on goods and services required to develop the area

And how would HRM get back the $20 million ?

IKEA got nothing. The developers building in HRM get nothing.
If the CFL can provide for 20 years one fifteenth of what HRM was gained from the province forking out $300 million to the shipyard I'll support such a a deal. The library cost HRM less than $20 million.

[elly63]

It ain't soccer, troll on.

[dtown]

I still don't understand this $200 Million range for a stadium. Tim Hortons field cost $150 and that is more than we need. Build a 25k stadium for $100 million and see if it works. If it does, spend more money and add on like they did at BMO field.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by dtown

I still don't understand this $200 Million range for a stadium. Tim Hortons field cost $150 and that is more than we need. Build a 25k stadium for $100 million and see if it works. If it does, spend more money and add on like they did at BMO field.

IIRC, THF is 22.5k seats, 1.5k on the patios (total 24k), so 100 million would be difficult for something decent. It's a hard number to find but I think Ottawa was around 100 million for a refurb (one stand structurally complete) at the same seating capacity. 200 million for a place to be proud of would be more in line.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by elly63

It ain't soccer, troll on.

Yes, it is not soccer; and games I attended several decades ago in Britain were in stadia built with private money.
The relatively new ground at Arsenal was built with club money and not a penny from taxpayers. A few miles away the new Tottenham stadium will cost circa $1.3 billion and not one cent of public money.
Liverpool expansion all with private money and Old Trafford all private money. $200 million may buy 2 decent players in the Premier League and wages over 5 years would be another $100 million. All that TV money from world broadcast rights is flowing into player pockets
Surely you can post, or make an attempt to post, a rational argument for public money being put into a private sports organisation.

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by Colin May

If the CFL can provide for 20 years one fifteenth of what HRM was gained from the province forking out $300 million to the shipyard I'll support such a a deal. The library cost HRM less than $20 million.

For the record, the Halifax Public Library cost taxpayers almost $58 million. More than $26 million came from HRM, much of it raised through land sales. The province added $13 million; the feds over $18 million. Of course, as we old bureaucrats liked to say, there's only one taxpayer. There was private money too, but only about $6.5 million in donations and sponsorships (incuding $1 million from the O'Regan family and $350,000 from Southwest Properties) for interior improvements, books and tech.

I have a healthy skepticism about the ability of this ownership group to sell a stadium to the public, though I do believe a region of close to half a million people deserves a practical stadium that can accommodate major public events. But it's clear our standards are somewhat fluid when discussing the value of different kinds of infrastructure.

[c-way-dude]

Originally Posted by dtown

I still don't understand this $200 Million range for a stadium. Tim Hortons field cost $150 and that is more than we need. Build a 25k stadium for $100 million and see if it works. If it does, spend more money and add on like they did at BMO field.

Tim Hortons Field (which opened in 2014) cost $145.7 million to build, and that included extra costs incurred with rushing to get it done on time (it actually opened a couple of months later than scheduled). There was also the cost of demolishing Ivor Wynne Stadium, as the new stadium was built on the same site.
IIRC, the projected cost of the proposed 25k seat Commonwealth Games Stadium was around $122 million circa 2008. That cost also included 20k temporary seating.
I do not know why the media keep saying the cost of building a CFL stadium will be north of $200 million. There isn't a stadium in the CFL's East Division that would cost that much to construct today.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Of course, as we old bureaucrats liked to say, there's only one taxpayer.

I appreciate your main point but I think the "one taxpayer" idea is wrong and at the core of some bad decisions that happen sometimes in Halifax. You are probably aware of this too but a lot of people don't seem to be.

There are millions of taxpayers in Canada in many different provinces. Often federal funding is made available through programs funded by nation-wide taxation. If people in Halifax leave funding that could be allocated to them on the table, they don't get a cheque from the federal government. The money instead is matched with funds from elsewhere in Canada, and Halifax taxpayers simply get less bang for their buck.

This has happened many times in Canada with federal programs designed to provide matching funds going disproportionately to areas like Ontario and Alberta that came up with the largest value of qualifying projects.

The spendthrift HRM crowd doesn't seem to appreciate this much. The reality is that while they may have an impact on HRM spending patterns they have almost no impact federally. So the sensible thing is for HRM to always have a set of "shovel-ready" projects and sometimes fund them in order to align with federal goals and obtain more matched federal funds.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Colin May

Surely you can post, or make an attempt to post, a rational argument for public money being put into a private sports organisation.

You're in Canada now Dorothy. You like everyone else here know nothing about this project and yet you are trolling the worst scenarios. I don't give a rat's ass about how things worked in the auld country because if it was so great why did you leave it? You keep showing that soccer, anti CFL bias and bring up scenarios from England that have zero relevance here. Don't worry, we'll let you play soccer in the new CFL driven stadium.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by elly63

You're in Canada now Dorothy. You like everyone else here know nothing about this project and yet you are trolling the worst scenarios. I don't give a rat's ass about how things worked in the auld country because if it was so great why did you leave it? You keep showing that soccer, anti CFL bias and bring up scenarios from England that have zero relevance here. Don't worry, we'll let you play soccer in the new CFL driven stadium.

So how about you put up a post with all you know about the project, assuming you know more than all the media outlets and the commissioner has given you a private briefing.
As a Packers fan since seeing them in 1966 I think I know a good team when I see one.
I went to a Whitecaps game in May, the stadium was very nice and the team was rubbish. I have lived in Canada the vast majority of my life, since 1974 in fact and like most other Canadians I recognise a proposal which reminds me of Clairtone, the heavy water plant and many other boondogles.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

I appreciate your main point but I think the "one taxpayer" idea is wrong and at the core of some bad decisions that happen sometimes in Halifax. You are probably aware of this too but a lot of people don't seem to be.

There are millions of taxpayers in Canada in many different provinces. Often federal funding is made available through programs funded by nation-wide taxation. If people in Halifax leave funding that could be allocated to them on the table, they don't get a cheque from the federal government. The money instead is matched with funds from elsewhere in Canada, and Halifax taxpayers simply get less bang for their buck.

This has happened many times in Canada with federal programs designed to provide matching funds going disproportionately to areas like Ontario and Alberta that came up with the largest value of qualifying projects.

The spendthrift HRM crowd doesn't seem to appreciate this much. The reality is that while they may have an impact on HRM spending patterns they have almost no impact federally. So the sensible thing is for HRM to always have a set of "shovel-ready" projects and sometimes fund them in order to align with federal goals and obtain more matched federal funds.

HRM has plenty of shovel ready projects, details in the financial statements and other documents. Expansion of water supply, transit, bike lanes and public recreation facilities are the major issues. Nova Scotia has always received its share of federal money, and with every riding being Liberal the fight over money will be well worth watching.
And HRM will have $200,000,000 in reserves by March 31 2018 to help pay for $6000,000,000 of projects. And then there is the Cogswell interchange.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

Nova Scotia has always received its share of federal money, and with every riding being Liberal the fight over money will be well worth watching.

I can't find them now but a few years back there were reports from a group like the Conference Board of Canada about combined provincial and federal funding broken down by city.

Halifax was dead last of all Canadian CMAs for multiple years.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

I can't find them now but a few years back there were reports from a group like the Conference Board of Canada about combined provincial and federal funding broken down by city.

Halifax was dead last of all Canadian CMAs for multiple years.

Are you referring to Infrastructure funding or total federal funding ?