Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3

[MalcolmTucker]

Think should be able to take out all of the lower bowl. Have it as a huge column free convention and concert space.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The $750 million demolition price tag from a few years ago was absolutely ridiculous. That should be much higher today. What that price tag does is make spending a billion dollars on a new roof for an obsolete purpose built olympic stadium alot more palatable.

Love the idea of adaptive reuse however, I see that being an even bigger elephant than what it is now unless they find another use for a large open space with terraced former stands. An indoor amusement park?

Indoor amusement park? That necessitates a roof!

Blows my mind how many of these giant Olympic Stadiums are built without any consideration for future uses. Even NFL stadiums are not worth it most of the time.

[WhipperSnapper]

Lol scratch that one off the list

[elly63]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Blows my mind how many of these giant Olympic Stadiums are built without any consideration for future uses.

It did have a future use, home of the Expos and Alouettes. I don't think we can blame planners for not being able to predict the future.

It's funny how no one talks about the two stage renovation to BC Place. They didn't exactly complete that at no cost (originally 514mil/685 mil in 2023). Yes, it will be huge money to renovate Olympic Stadium but like it or not it is Montreal's Eiffel Tower, people identify with it on the skyline.

Also when people talk about the age of the structure they often forget about the Olympiastadion (1936) or the old stadiums in California. These structures are still valid (and yes I know about the past Montreal issues)

Had they not repurposed the Velodrome or Olympic Village the area would have done well as an NTC (National Training Centre)

[thurmas]

I don't know how Legault would be able to justify close to 1 billion in renovations ? As the interior obviously needs a renovation similar to rogers centre of 300 million if being repurposed for cfl and soccer. Then the roof and technical ring would like be probably 600 million or so. Would be a very tough sell to the public. Might be wiser to just renovate molson and saputo and leave the big o alone.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by elly63

It did have a future use, home of the Expos and Alouettes. I don't think we can blame planners for not being able to predict the future.

Right, the Expos were in much earlier than I thought, founded in 1968. For some reason, I thought they started in the early 70s when the Olympic Stadium was already u/c (so the stadium's conception before the Expos).

[thurmas]

Canada is similar to Scandinavia where we have no practical use for large stadiums. Ideally they should all be between 23,000 and 35,000 seats like we had in the 50s and 60s when they were appropriately sized with the big ones in Vancouver Toronto and Montreal around 33 to 39 k and the mid sized cities around 20 or 25 k.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Canada is similar to Scandinavia where we have no practical use for large stadiums. Ideally they should all be between 23,000 and 35,000 seats like we had in the 50s and 60s when they were appropriately sized with the big ones in Vancouver Toronto and Montreal around 33 to 39 k and the mid sized cities around 20 or 25 k.

Again, people can't predict the future, in the 70s the CFL was attracting 50k+ crowds in some markets. The Eskimos had a season ticket base of over 50k.

As for Scandinavia, in or near Stockholm there are several large stadiums (two of which have retractable roofs 50k and 30k)

[esquire]

Originally Posted by elly63

It did have a future use, home of the Expos and Alouettes. I don't think we can blame planners for not being able to predict the future.

It's funny how no one talks about the two stage renovation to BC Place. They didn't exactly complete that at no cost (originally 514mil/685 mil in 2023). Yes, it will be huge money to renovate Olympic Stadium but like it or not it is Montreal's Eiffel Tower, people identify with it on the skyline.

Also when people talk about the age of the structure they often forget about the Olympiastadion (1936) or the old stadiums in California. These structures are still valid (and yes I know about the past Montreal issues)

Had they not repurposed the Velodrome or Olympic Village the area would have done well as an NTC (National Training Centre)

There is some truth to your comment about predicting the future. When Olympic Stadium was planned, it was reasonable to expect many years of huge Expos and Alouettes crowds. The Alouettes drew huge crowds for maybe the first two years before dropping off sharply. The Expos kept it going for 20+ years but the 2000s were a disaster for them.

So I guess at least Montreal got nearly 30 years of Major League Baseball out of the deal. But that's about it. The other sports tenants (Alouettes, Concordes, Manic, Machine, Impact) were pretty marginal in terms of how much they got out of Olympic Stadium.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by elly63

Again, people can't predict the future, in the 70s the CFL was attracting 50k+ crowds in some markets. The Eskimos had a season ticket base of over 50k.

Yeah, in the late 70s and early 80s, Edmonton, BC, Toronto and Montreal were pulling huge numbers in terms of fans and revenue. Their stadiums were pretty well NFL-calibre by the standards of the day. But it didn't last very long.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by elly63

It did have a future use, home of the Expos and Alouettes. I don't think we can blame planners for not being able to predict the future.

It's funny how no one talks about the two stage renovation to BC Place. They didn't exactly complete that at no cost (originally 514mil/685 mil in 2023). Yes, it will be huge money to renovate Olympic Stadium but like it or not it is Montreal's Eiffel Tower, people identify with it on the skyline.

Also when people talk about the age of the structure they often forget about the Olympiastadion (1936) or the old stadiums in California. These structures are still valid (and yes I know about the past Montreal issues)

Had they not repurposed the Velodrome or Olympic Village the area would have done well as an NTC (National Training Centre)

Olympic Stadium was built without consulting the Expos and Alouettes, leading to a sub-par venue for them even by standards of the era. It's one thing to build a Turner Field-like stadium that had the Braves in mind post-1996 Olympics, but the long-term considerations of the future tenants was not a major consideration for the Big O.

The question of how the future played out from 1976 (it did get decently used from the 1970s through the 1990s) versus how it will play out tomorrow from a 2023 vantage point bears examining. The 2023 vantage doesn't look pretty and the downsides of a large renovation seem to outweigh the upsides. It's a hard sell politically.

BC Place's renovation was expensive, and of questionable value IMO. BC Place also didn't have the 'legacy' of the Big O for better or worse.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

There is some truth to your comment about predicting the future.

Well, yes, that's why I posted it

[esquire]

BC Place was built on the cheap relative to Olympic Stadium. $307 million. Even the half billion spent to renovate it and redo the roof doesn't seem so bad now considering all that gets you today is a base-level NHL arena.

[WhipperSnapper]

No one can predict the future is why you don't throw a billion dollar investment at a rudderless aging stadium. Commercial development learned the hard way with every single speculative builder in the 1970s and 1980s was dead by the mid 1990s. The banks learned too having to underwrite and bail out billions from those developers.

Expo 67 and Montreal Expos. Ironically, Nationals would have been top of list if founded later on in the 1970s.

[thurmas]

I have real reservations an updated big o would not kill the Alouettes. A run down molson still seems a better option being downtown in the summer

[elly63]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Olympic Stadium was built without consulting the Expos and Alouettes, leading to a sub-par venue for them even by standards of the era. It's one thing to build a Turner Field-like stadium that had the Braves in mind post-1996 Olympics, but the long-term considerations of the future tenants was not a major consideration for the Big O.

BC Place's renovation was expensive, and of questionable value IMO. BC Place also didn't have the 'legacy' of the Big O for better or worse.

I think you are looking at this through today's lens. Like the SkyDome, people considered the Big O state of the art (even if it was short lived) There is no way the Big O was sub par for either team at that time. Jarry Park had a capacity of 28k, the 70s were the heyday of multipurpose cookie cutter stadiums. The Expos weren't upset having to move from Jarry Park and I doubt the Als were either when their attendance shot up 30k

As for BC Place, aside from the usual activist moaners that any city would have, who has regretted the decision to do the upgrade, especially when it is the only all weather all year stadium we have.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I have real reservations an updated big o would not kill the Alouettes. A run down molson still seems a better option being downtown in the summer

To me the only acceptable internal renovation would be to gut much of the interior and lower capacity to 30-35k which of course would be an outrageous cost. I think if they can get the roof done, have a year round facility and save it for special CFL/MLS games and then see what happens. And then they could see if they wanted to go full hog on the interior.

[WhipperSnapper]

Special CFL and MLS games. Sounds like a worst deal than spending $2 billion for 8 NFL games.

[thurmas]

Can probably spend 300 million on molson renovation and kick the can on big o and get more out of it if molson could host mls after a reno

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

BC Place was built on the cheap relative to Olympic Stadium. $307 million. Even the half billion spent to renovate it and redo the roof doesn't seem so bad now considering all that gets you today is a base-level NHL arena.

Also, people often mistake the price of the Big O with the final price for the stadium, Velodrome, Olympic Village and Sports Centre and the costs to repurpose them. The Big O did not cost 1.5 billion as many people think. But, yes the Big O was outrageously expensive and beyond over budget (5x?).

Also aside from the mafia (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) there were several unforeseen costs that affected the cost. There were soil issues, the cost of steel went from $200/ton to $1200/ton.

There is a huge report on this from an architectural firm which I'll try and find. People complain when I post full articles but it's the only way to preserve history. I likely won't be able to find the report, but here's hoping.