There has been quite a bit if discussion in the Atlantic Provinces section of Skyscraperpage (
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...153061&page=17 ) with regards to Halifax building a new stadium. The other idea is for Moncton to try to get a franchise since they have a stadium.
One idea is to build a partially covered stadium in Halifax alone the lines of the proposed new Blue Bombers stadium in Winnipeg show below:
This stadium has a sunken bowl. The idea of a sunken bowl should greatly reduce the cost since the outer exposed walls for the stadium will be much lower and therefore require fewer materials. With a sunken bowl, I imagine that the lower bowl of stands also serves as a retaining wall for the excavated ground. Instead of a 25 foot sunken bowl they could go even deeper (say 40 - 50 feet). Even the concourse for the second tier of seating could be partly sunken (so the concourse with washrooms and canteens, is say 15-20 feet below ground level and then the playing field could be 25 feet below the concourse). Although the bedrock in the Halifax area would make excavation difficult, there may be natural areas that are already partly excavated, for example an old quarry. Does a quarry still exist in the Dartmouth Crossings area? Another advantage of a sunken bowl is that that the ground is a natural insulator and would make it warmer during the winter and cooler during the summer.
Another idea is to link the new stadium to existing facilities to share parking and washrooms to keep the cost down. Examples are the new Canada Winter Games location or Exhibition Park. Then have the facilities linked to share some of the infrastructure. Since the stadium will probably not make money it will be important to keep the cost down. An advantage of having it at Exhibition Park is that they could organize larger events for the Maritime Fair (for example, look at the Calgary Stampede).
Politicians will likely not show interest unless people in the Halifax area indicate that it is something that they are interested in. I think a new stadium is more important to the Halifax area than a new Metro Centre. Then the Halifax area will have two facilities for concerts. One for very large concerts (the new stadium) and another (the current Metro Centre) for medium size concerts. The CFL seems like a better fit for the Halifax area than the NHL. The NHL would be difficult to support since it would likely take about $50,000,000 annually (in ticket prices and corporate sponsorship) out of the local economy which would likely be taken from other entertainment venues such as restaurants and theater. I think that it is better for Halifax to maintain a very good variety of restaurants than to have the NHL. On the other hand the CFL would probably take less than $10,000,000 annually out of the local economy and still probably provide equal exposure across Canada where I think Halifax needs it the most.
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