Halifax Stadium Discussion

[someone123]

The city's annual budget is over $1B. Projects built in the city with $50M or $100M in municipal spending don't need to be all things to all people.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I can't imagine the most multi-purpose stadium is used by the public every day... but, maybe I just don't have the right frame of reference.

If the people running it know what they are doing, it damn near should be. Stadiums are more than an outdoor field, depending on design they can be a community fitness centre, conference centre, meeting hall for receptions, offices for local sport agencies. I wonder how many people have been married or had their reception at Mosaic stadium.

And let's not forget the field itself, it can be rented for public use for minor, high school, university football, rugby and possibly even soccer if their fans don't try and block construction.

And as I posted earlier you can bubble the field over for winter use. I took a post grad at a college that had a bubble attached to a building as its fitness facilities.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Come on, do some basic research. 180,000 Haligonians have a library card. The library system draws 3 million visits annually, from both active borrowers and those without a card who use its services; I think it's safe to say that well over half of Haligonians use the library regularly.

As a person who has been a librarian as one career in a long and varied working life, I really have to doubt that.

[elly63]

Here are some other ideas on how a stadium can be used. Love the funeral home example!

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by elly63

As a person who has been a librarian as one career in a long and varied working life, I really have to doubt that.

Agreed. I had a library card for a while, used it 2, maybe 3 times over the years it was valid. There are extremely loyal library users who are in there all the time and punch up their numbers, but as to the actual percentage of residents who actively use it, nobody seems to know.

[elly63]

There isn't a valid reason to not be able to set aside funds for both libraries and stadiums. But it does rankle when one side garners much more criticism than the other.

The problem is everybody is speculating when they have no idea what is being discussed and/or planned. How about being supportive of the project and then bitch when we find out what is actually going on.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by elly63

As a person who has been a librarian as one career in a long and varied working life, I really have to doubt that.

It's not just borrowing books, it's using the community spaces, attending events, doing research.

Sorry, but it's not on me to prove that the public library system is well-used by the public, or important to the city, it's on naysayers to prove otherwise.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Sorry, but it's not on me to prove that the public library system is well-used by the public, or important to the city, it's on naysayers to prove otherwise.

You don't have to try and back out of it. You posted it specifically, so you must have a source. I have no evidence aside from my own empirical judgment from doing the job and to say half of a city's citizens use a library regularly, in this day and age, in my opinion, is ludicrous. I only wish it were true. I would be surprised if one in ten people used a library regularly.

I don't really know what this has to do with the stadium though, aside from getting a dig in. To me it's embarrassing that a city Halifax's size doesn't have a decent outdoor athletic facility, Moncton has a new arena and stadium and somehow they figured out how to do it. But being embarrassed isn't a good reason to build a stadium, need across the community is. Building a half assed stadium for a soccer team that will likely get a few hundred fans and not be able to accommodate professional football to me is a waste of resources. And that is to assume whether the CPL ever gets off the ground.

[cjones2451]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Come on, do some basic research. 180,000 Haligonians have a library card. The library system draws 3 million visits annually, from both active borrowers and those without a card who use its services; I think it's safe to say that well over half of Haligonians use the library regularly. Would more than half of us go see a football team annually? It's not really an either-or discussion, as both a football team and a healthy library system have merits regardless, but I think the assumption that more people would make use of a stadium isn't necessarily true.

I think most of it boils down to perceived value and both do, but for different reasons.
Libraries are not money makers and are not supposed to be.
Most people get upset at government money going towards a stadium because it is perceived that it is helping a rich owner get more rich. I think in the case of a CFL owner, we can conclude that none of them are getting rich from the CFL.
If a P3 model along the lines of Landsdowne Park could be found, I think people need to be open......why, because...
Construction workers would pay taxes while building the stadium and surrounding businesses infrastructure etc.
Workers at the stadium would do the same, and workers in the surrounding businesses. (Yes some of those dollars may be spent elsewhere, but there would probably be incremental events to generate spending that might not be there, Grey Cup, Concerts, Monster Trucks, MLS exhibition games, Vanier Cups, etc.
Goods and services from the stadium would also generate tax revenue
Property tax etc. would also


If the numbers make sense and the HRM / Provincial and the Feds (maybe) pony up some money up front, but the long term payback more than covers it and the Maritime Football Group have a sound business plan and financial backing, why would people overall have a problem with it.
I may not use the library because I get my content online, but I shouldn't have an objection to "my tax dollars" funding it

[elly63]

^Amen.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by elly63

You don't have to try and back out of it. You posted it specifically, so you must have a source. I have no evidence aside from my own empirical judgment from doing the job and to say half of a city's citizens use a library regularly, in this day and age, in my opinion, is ludicrous. I only wish it were true. I would be surprised if one in ten people used a library [B]regularly.

You don't know what the word "empirical" means. (If you have no evidence besides your own judgement, you don't have empirical evidence, you have only individual judgement based on incomplete data.)

Again, a library is not used only when someone checks out a physical book. It's a community space, an event venue, a research database, an archive, an education centre. If 44% of Haligonians are active borrowers, and even a few use a library for other purposes, that's more than half. Even if it's less than that, even if it's 1/4, that's more than 100,000 people, and a backbone of the city's cultural and intellectual life.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

You don't know what the word "empirical" means. (If you have no evidence besides your own judgement, you don't have empirical evidence, you have only individual judgement based on incomplete data.)

em·pir·i·cal
əmˈpirik(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: empirical

based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Again, a library is not used only when someone checks out a physical book. It's a community space, an event venue, a research database, an archive, an education centre. If 44% of Haligonians are active borrowers, and even a few use a library for other purposes, that's more than half. Even if it's less than that, even if it's 1/4, that's more than 100,000 people, and a backbone of the city's cultural and intellectual life.

I heard you the first time and it's still bullshit (unfortunately) the second time around. It's one quarter now? Keep going.

I would never make a claim of a percentage of people that would go to a football game. As long as 25k go every week I'd be happy and wouldn't care of they were the same 25k every week or not. Of course that doesn't help build a franchise.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by elly63

If the people running it know what they are doing, it damn near should be. Stadiums are more than an outdoor field, depending on design they can be a community fitness centre, conference centre, meeting hall for receptions, offices for local sport agencies. I wonder how many people have been married or had their reception at Mosaic stadium.

And let's not forget the field itself, it can be rented for public use for minor, high school, university football, rugby and possibly even soccer if their fans don't try and block construction.

And as I posted earlier you can bubble the field over for winter use. I took a post grad at a college that had a bubble attached to a building as its fitness facilities.

Yes, I suppose it COULD be more than just an outdoor field.

I do think Halifax needs a good stadium, and I would love it if it incorporated the capacity for the other uses you've noted. Halifax could also use a good performing arts venue. I've enjoyed the Rebecca Cohen for live music, but there is no fly tower, the wings are incredibly short and backstage is vastly undersized to support a visiting theatre, opera or dance company.

All of these things help raise the people's enjoyment of a city and all are civic "infrastructure" at some level. It would be nice to see standards raised across the board here.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by elly63

You don't have to try and back out of it. You posted it specifically, so you must have a source. I have no evidence aside from my own empirical judgment from doing the job and to say half of a city's citizens use a library regularly, in this day and age, in my opinion, is ludicrous. I only wish it were true. I would be surprised if one in ten people used a library regularly.

I don't really know what this has to do with the stadium though, aside from getting a dig in. To me it's embarrassing that a city Halifax's size doesn't have a decent outdoor athletic facility, Moncton has a new arena and stadium and somehow they figured out how to do it. But being embarrassed isn't a good reason to build a stadium, need across the community is. Building a half assed stadium for a soccer team that will likely get a few hundred fans and not be able to accommodate professional football to me is a waste of resources. And that is to assume whether the CPL ever gets off the ground.

I'd have to agree on that. I use my library very frequently. I go to one of the branches at least once a week and borrow somewhere between 50 and 100 books yearly.

If someone wants library stats, CULC/CBUC - Canadian Urban Libraries Council has some stats, but what it misses is definitions of active user and breakdowns of active user frequency. With that one could define a % of the population that moderately uses the library which is the number we are looking for.

How many total people visited a library last year.
How many people use it somewhat regularly.

Check the KPIS page for some 2015 statistics

And yes, my city is paying way too much for its library service, but then it is also running provincial stuff so maybe, but still it seems way out of whack to what should be going on. And I am one who loves my library.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by elly63

Building a half assed stadium for a soccer team that will likely get a few hundred fans and not be able to accommodate professional football to me is a waste of resources. And that is to assume whether the CPL ever gets off the ground.

Because the Wanderers ground projects is privately financed I don't see why they should be aiming for any alternative use beside what they're putting funding in for (despite this, the field will still be open for rugby and other events). If they were clamoring for public money I can see a multifaceted approach being needed but that isn't the case. SEA sees a need and potential for a new sports team and they're going for it. I can understand if people are being initially skeptical if millions of dollars of public money is on the line for other sports-related projects.

I find it a bit ironic that you're so negative on the CPL after saying a few posts prior:

Originally Posted by elly63

The problem is everybody is speculating when they have no idea what is being discussed and/or planned. How about being supportive of the project and then bitch when we find out what is actually going on.

The stadium hasn't even been built or the team announced. How about being supportive of the project and then bitching once the team takes the field?

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by elly63

I would never make a claim of a percentage of people that would go to a football game. As long as 25k go every week I'd be happy and wouldn't care of they were the same 25k every week or not. Of course that doesn't help build a franchise.

25k a week? Look at attendance statistics for much larger cities with CFL teams. Football is big on the prairies, not so much further east. Ottawa gets 24,000 average attendance in a city of 1.5 million. Toronto gets 13,000.

There does seem to be a pattern that smaller cities actually have bigger CFL turnouts, maybe due to a lack of other sporting options, but they're all on the prairies or in Hamilton, which have longstanding affinities for the sport, which the Atlantic region does.

Football is also declining in popularity in Canada. Regular-season CFL attendance has dropped eight of the past ten years, and every one of the past five years. From 29,166 in 2007 to 24,644 in 2017.

If Halifax became a CFL city, it'd be one of the league's smallest markets, in a region with no particular prior connection the sport, which in any case is slowly declining nationwide. 25k a game? It's not impossible. But it's not likely either.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The stadium hasn't even been built or the team announced. How about being supportive of the project and then bitching once the team takes the field?

I agree, I was being hypocritical out of frustration. I have a love hate relationship with soccer. I've been a fan of our national teams longer than most of the modern fans have been alive. I followed the CSL and contrary to what I posted, I do want to see the CPL succeed. I have a real problem with some soccer fans who troll CFL sites and things like this construction project and i posted something I probably didn't really mean.

I do know the stadium is being privately financed but I didn't appreciate the ownership group's attitude towards the CFL project which was published in one of the articles. That kind of skewed me a bit about the local CPL group.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

25k a week? Look at attendance statistics for much larger cities with CFL teams. Football is big on the prairies, not so much further east. Ottawa gets 24,000 average attendance in a city of 1.5 million. Toronto gets 13,000.

There does seem to be a pattern that smaller cities actually have bigger CFL turnouts, maybe due to a lack of other sporting options, but they're all on the prairies or in Hamilton, which have longstanding affinities for the sport, which the Atlantic region does.

Football is also declining in popularity in Canada. Regular-season CFL attendance has dropped eight of the past ten years, and every one of the past five years. From 29,166 in 2007 to 24,644 in 2017.

If Halifax became a CFL city, it'd be one of the league's smallest markets, in a region with no particular prior connection the sport, which in any case is slowly declining nationwide. 25k a game? It's not impossible. But it's not likely either.

I agree with much of what you said with a few qualifiers. Attendance figures are down in Ottawa and Hamilton because they have downsized capacity to increase ticket scarcity but at the same time increased revenues. Hamilton now makes money but weren't when they had a capacity of 29k. Figures are also skewed because of the dumpster fire that is Toronto that is going to take time to repair. I doubt if MLSE itself (now including Rogers with the Argos) would buy the team if they didn't see a value or potential in it.

What we are seeing now and going forward is value in content. Commissioner Ambrosie is in talks with ESPN because of the multivaried platforms that can get the CFL out there with much wider exposure. He would have to balance that with maybe getting a better offer from the NFL Network who are desperate for content but a lesser exposure.

What I am saying is while attendance is important, it is becoming increasing less important. Many leagues are downsizing seats for roaming areas like party plazas, the game may be becoming secondary to a night's entertainment with a greater revenue flow.

Maybe Rogers bought into the Argos because they want to air a Game of the Week which might be more important to them than the attendance for 10 home games.

I agree that the CFL in Halifax will be a tough row to hoe. I don't know if this group is the right group or not, but I'd rather take a shot at it and get some decent facilities for the city than to sit back and dream or lament what might have been.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

Yes, I suppose it COULD be more than just an outdoor field.

I do think Halifax needs a good stadium, and I would love it if it incorporated the capacity for the other uses you've noted. Halifax could also use a good performing arts venue. I've enjoyed the Rebecca Cohen for live music, but there is no fly tower, the wings are incredibly short and backstage is vastly undersized to support a visiting theatre, opera or dance company.

All of these things help raise the people's enjoyment of a city and all are civic "infrastructure" at some level. It would be nice to see standards raised across the board here.

Amen, I spent a lot of time at the Cohn (and the Dalplex) Pretty sure I was the only guy studying physics and theatre (and finding theater harder) I like to tell people I majored in tennis with the amount of time I was at the Dalplex.

Speaking of facilities, they were building the arena when I was there and I understand they knocked it down five years ago? Time flies.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I do think Halifax needs a good stadium, and I would love it if it incorporated the capacity for the other uses you've noted. Halifax could also use a good performing arts venue. I've enjoyed the Rebecca Cohen for live music, but there is no fly tower, the wings are incredibly short and backstage is vastly undersized to support a visiting theatre, opera or dance company.

All of these things help raise the people's enjoyment of a city and all are civic "infrastructure" at some level. It would be nice to see standards raised across the board here.

Years ago (maybe around 2005) there was a push for a performing arts centre. There were renderings but I am not sure if the proponents had any site in mind. I think the proposed name was Nova Centre.