Halifax Stadium Discussion

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

I'm just worried that if Halifax builds a stadium, it's going to be no-frills

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Can't expect a Ferrari if all you can afford is a Lada.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

All commercial development in the city is a cash cow. That's how the tax burden is set up. Suburban commercial development is less of a cash cow than urban development because it pays a lower tax rate and has higher servicing costs.

The question to ask about Dartmouth Crossing isn't whether it generates more revenue than it costs, it's if that development was better than the alternatives.

But that is all largely irrelevant to a stadium discussion anyway. Dartmouth Crossing will be about the same whether a stadium is built there or somewhere else.

Most of Burnside was developed with public money from Dartmouth and the other levels of government. Prior to that Commodore Estates, fronted by well known Liberals wrongly assumed they could make a fortune breaking rocks and boulders - they lost their shirts. Dartmouth Crossing was a Whebby gravel pit and the family were blocked from changing the zoning because it would have been competition for the city of Dartmouth. Dartmouth spent a fortune every year preparing land and then selling lots at less than the cost of clearing and servicing the land. At the time the city believed that tax revenue would provide income - a version of TIF.
Dartmouth Crossing pays the same tax rate as Spring Garden Road. They could care less about where a stadium is built.
Commercial tax rate is uniform across HRM.
The servicing costs are lower - significantly less crime.
Policing costs are higher on peninsula Halifax and within the area now described as the centre in the Centre Plan.
RCMP HQ is in Burnside and 3,000 feet from Dartmouth Crossing, a few minutes to Highway 102 and Highway 101.

[c-way-dude]

Originally Posted by elly63

Am I missing something here?

Well, BMO Field doesn't get used much by CFL fans.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

It seems weird to have this standard for the North Dartmouth waterfront. The neighbours of the stadium site are the Tufts Cove smokestacks and the transmission towers and high voltage power lines.

Yeah, but they don't look "utilitarian"

[elly63]

Originally Posted by c-way-dude

Well, BMO Field doesn't get used much by CFL fans.

Rome wasn't built in a day and attendance is up this year no matter how slightly. So let's see if the freefall has slowed.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

Most of Burnside was developed with public money from Dartmouth and the other levels of government. Prior to that Commodore Estates, fronted by well known Liberals wrongly assumed they could make a fortune breaking rocks and boulders - they lost their shirts. Dartmouth Crossing was a Whebby gravel pit and the family were blocked from changing the zoning because it would have been competition for the city of Dartmouth. Dartmouth spent a fortune every year preparing land and then selling lots at less than the cost of clearing and servicing the land. At the time the city believed that tax revenue would provide income - a version of TIF.

The highway infrastructure around Dartmouth Crossing was mostly not paid for by the developer.

Just the little connection from the 118 to Dartmouth crossing cost $16M and that was shared between the developer, city, and province (source). That's 1/10 of a stadium for one mini interchange piece.

Dartmouth Crossing pays the same tax rate as Spring Garden Road.

The commercial mill rate is the same but assessments (e.g. per square foot of retail space) are much lower in Dartmouth Crossing. These are not necessarily tied to servicing costs. For residences, average HRM costs are much lower on average in urban than suburban areas (source). Once you add in the difference in assessments the difference in tax dollars collected per dollar spent is large.

The servicing costs are lower - significantly less crime.
Policing costs are higher on peninsula Halifax and within the area now described as the centre in the Centre Plan.

How do you know how much crime is caused by commercial development going in one place or another? Assuming there's more crime downtown, maybe it's from the people who live nearby or some other cause. I personally doubt that IKEA or a stadium would incite criminals in either location. The HRM data actually shows per capita policing costs are lower in the urban core.

You kinda tied Burnside back to the stadium by saying that it sort of used a TIF scheme (property taxes will make up for the development costs up front), but there are a bunch of problems with this comparison. There is little to no public value to putting a suburban tilt-up box in DC vs. Burnside, but without public involvement there might be no stadium. Furthermore it's clear that the old city of Dartmouth and the HRM and province were poorly coordinated with Burnside/DC/Bayers, paying for a bunch of simultaneous developments. TIF is just a financing scheme. The merits depend on the project costs and benefits, not the financing scheme.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by elly63

You seem to want to conjure up opposition to this football stadium (we will let you play soccer there) just because you don't want it built.

With all due respect, you appear to be doing the same thing for the opposite point of view.

I understand your enthusiasm, but insulting Colin because you don't agree with him does nothing for your argument.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I just plowed through the 2007 Metro Centre II WHW report. Fascinating stuff, I cannot understand how this flew under the radar at the time. It was delivered to HRM but I do not recall it being discussed at Council.

The work was done in 2006 when Fast Freddy MacGillivray was still at the helm of WTCC with his delusions of grandeur. So perhaps like any good consultant. WHW may have produced a document that was what he told them he wanted to see. Or maybe it got derailed by the Commonwealth Games excitement.

Whatever, it delivered a pretty damning indictment of the existing Metro Centre. I was shocked to read that the walls are made of something called "concrete-asbestos panels". Given it was built in the mid-70s I suppose asbestos was still in general use but I was amazed to learn this. Also the roof is equipped with 4" of styrofoam insulation except where it slopes, in which instance it only got 1.5". It must be hugely energy inefficient. The report also outlines the many other shortcomings including the unwelcoming exterior design, the poor washrooms and tiny concourses, unimpressive entrances, poor access for the disabled, bad sightlines from the upper bowl, inadequate locker rooms, etc. The list is long.

It tries to make the case for a 15.000 seat new arena. I am not convinced it succeeds in this, but with everything about the existing building taken together I can see the need for a new facility of some sort. The Cogswell site was preferred in their scenario because the city controlled the land, whereas they speculated that acquiring the Trade Mart site might be in the area of $30 million at the time.

So I got to thinking. What if HRM abandoned the planning dept's wet dream of a Cogswell site that included every de rigeur idea in the latest planning textbook, and went ahead with the proposal for a new MC on that site? You still get rid of the interchange, the streets become at-grade, and you end up with a much-simplified street grid.

Then you demolish the existing MC along with the WTCC and plunk whatever size stadium you can fit onto that lot with the field running east-west. The hole that already exists into the side of the hill would make the west end of the stadium fairly easy to construct and would be a logical place for end-zone seating. The other end would be open for views of the harbour and downtown. The one thing I do not know is if the sideline stands would have enough room to give 24000 total seats. And of course you would need to re-acquire the WTCC building from the current owner. Perhaps he would take only a modest profit as a public service (but don't hold your breath).

Has anyone tried to do a map with an overlay of a stadium on that site? Just imagine, a new arena AND a downtown stadium. Everybody wins! Well, except the taxpayer, but let's not go there just yet.

That's a really interesting idea, Keith. Talk about thinking outside of the box!

Would be interesting if somebody in the field (pardon the pun) could do a feasibility study on it. I think it would be a great location for a stadium, though you'd have to figure out some way to keep people from watching for free from Citadel Hill!

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

That's a really interesting idea, Keith. Talk about thinking outside of the box!

Would be interesting if somebody in the field (pardon the pun) could do a feasibility study on it. I think it would be a great location for a stadium, though you'd have to figure out some way to keep people from watching for free from Citadel Hill!

Outside the box thinking is always welcome. But I’d flip the box over and point out there’s lots of room at Shannon Park for both a new arena and a stadium. And for an arena, a stadium and new civic auditorium. And a new art gallery. And even that perennial wet dream, an east coast aquarium.

There is room at Shannon Park for all of these things if we were looking at the space for what it is, an extremely rare opportunity for a cultural and recreational hub in the heart of the city.

The model exists in Seattle, where Seattle Centre is an oasis of parkland that includes a 17,000 seat arena, a 12,000 seat stadium, at least six theatres, an opera house, a science centre, multiple museums and galleries, an amphitheater, exhibition space and numerous other attractions. It occupies 74 acres — less than Shannon Park — and is the heart of the city’s vibrant uptown neighbourhood.

Before anyone has a heart attack, it’s also developed over 56 years, not overnight. (The land had been the site of the 1962 Worlds Fair, when Seattle’s population was about 1.4 million.) But to my mind it’s a symbol of what could be accomplished with some real out of the box thinking about what the Shannon lands really represent to this city.

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by someone123

It seems weird to have this standard for the North Dartmouth waterfront. The neighbours of the stadium site are the Tufts Cove smokestacks and the transmission towers and high voltage power lines. I don't think a bare bones stadium would look worse than those.

Because it's a prominent location and it's a chance to improve things. Why constantly expect or accept low standards?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Outside the box thinking is always welcome. But I’d flip the box over and point out there’s lots of room at Shannon Park for both a new arena and a stadium. And for an arena, a stadium and new civic auditorium. And a new art gallery. And even that perennial wet dream, an east coast aquarium.

Yes, there's lots of room. It's a vast wasteland. But we would want people to go there. That's not the spot for that.

[ILoveHalifax]

Originally Posted by keith p.

yes, there's lots of room. It's a vast wasteland. But we would want people to go there. That's not the spot for that.

build it and they will come

[elly63]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I understand your enthusiasm, but insulting Colin because you don't agree with him does nothing for your argument.

Colin has taken cheap shots and posted disinformation and his baseless conjectures about this project from day one. He's a big boy and if he chooses to dish it out he has to assume the responsibility of taking it in return. He won't admit that if this was a stadium for his beloved auld country soccer he'd be all over it.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Why constantly expect or accept low standards?

Who's doing that? Seems to me there's a lot of negative opinions posted here with absolutely no information or fact yet to base them on.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by ns_kid

Outside the box thinking is always welcome. But I’d flip the box over and point out there’s lots of room at Shannon Park for both a new arena and a stadium. And for an arena, a stadium and new civic auditorium. And a new art gallery. And even that perennial wet dream, an east coast aquarium.

There is room at Shannon Park for all of these things if we were looking at the space for what it is, an extremely rare opportunity for a cultural and recreational hub in the heart of the city.

If we had an endless pot of money we could also build new hospitals, recruit the doctors we need, provide the exploding population of seniors with housing and care facilities, address affordable housing needs, and have proper transportation infrastructure. Even as flush with cash as HRM is, they cannot afford that dream.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by elly63

Who's doing that? Seems to me there's a lot of negative opinions posted here with absolutely no information or fact yet to base them on.

I agree. I don't think any renderings or design plans for the new stadium have been released to the public.

It seems premature to me to argue that this is going to fall below whatever design standard we want for Shannon Park before we even know what it will look like.

Is the Wanderers Ground stadium an eyesore? It cost a lot less per seat than the proposed Shannon Park stadium will.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

If we had an endless pot of money we could also build new hospitals, recruit the doctors we need, provide the exploding population of seniors with housing and care facilities, address affordable housing needs, and have proper transportation infrastructure. Even as flush with cash as HRM is, they cannot afford that dream.

NS is already planning to build a new hospital, and Canada already spends about 3.5x per capita more on seniors than it does on everybody else (~$42k a year for over-65 compared to $12,000 for the rest, including school-aged children). Seniors are on average much better off than the younger working-age people who are being taxed to provide senior benefits like pensions that the younger people will never themselves receive.

I disagree with anybody who argues that the province must spend $0 on cultural or recreational facilities until we all come to an agreement that nothing more can be spent on health care. It's not even sure that more money is the solution to the health care woes that exist, or that any number of dollars will make everyone perfectly happy about health care.

[stephan.richard]

What the City of Halifax is reach out to all the maritime provinces to pitch the Idea of helping pout on the financing of the Stadium. And as i said in an earlier post the CFL team should br s maritime team. Since i moved here in Saskatchewan i have volunteered for the Roughriders and its a cool opportunity. And i hope the Halifax stadium could be modeled like Mosaic Stadium here in Regina.


View of stadium of stands facing east,

View of Pils Section and Maxtron.

Arial view of the Stadium


And for those worried about parking we have the best model to get fans in and out of the stadium on gameday.

https://www.riderville.com/getting-to-the-stadium/



And here is a bit on Rider Transit or folks who want to take the bus.

"Why drive and hunt for parking when you can sit back and just ride? FREE! That’s right Rider Nation, take the bus instead!

Simply show your game ticket and hop aboard with your fellow fans beginning 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to kickoff with continuous looping pickup/drop-off intervals leading up to game time.

Buses will depart from the Southland Mall, Northgate Mall, Victoria Square Mall and the Warehouse (Behind Centennial Mall, Dewdney and Scarth), as well as two downtown stops: eastbound Saskatchewan Drive/Hamilton Street (Delta Hotel) and westbound Victoria Avenue/Scarth Street (Victoria Park).

Passengers are unloaded in front of Mosaic Stadium on 10th Avenue or Elphinstone St and picked up in the same location. You can meet there after the game to head back to the malls/downtown, for up to an hour post-game.
Make the safe and hassle-free choice each game day by taking free Rider Transit presented by WorkSafe Saskatchewan!"

This model promotes the usage of public transit instead of driving.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

I agree. I don't think any renderings or design plans for the new stadium have been released to the public.

Well, there was this that was shown during an ATV interview.



However, there is an issue about this stadium render. It is a different coloured version of a proposed SDSU stadium in the US.

Someone is doing something fishy whether it's the designer or the prospective owners whose story has been all along that they had a design done in California and showed it to city council. Gensler is in California (San Francisco).

Maybe the designers gave them a generic render, or the owners wanted to get an idea out there what it might look like, who knows, but if it is the owners up to shenanigans that were so obvious, I'll be the first to condemn it and that as someone who wants to see the project go ahead.

So Halifax stadium haterz out there, don't forget who has just given you a conspiracy theory for your grist mill. I want this team and this stadium but not if it will be a second coming of the Renegades. I want it done right or not at all.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by someone123

It seems premature to me to argue that this is going to fall below whatever design standard we want for Shannon Park before we even know what it will look like. Is the Wanderers Ground stadium an eyesore? It cost a lot less per seat than the proposed Shannon Park stadium will.

Yup!