Both Shannon Park and the Willow Park/Canada Post locations have their pro's and con's.
I can see a stadium at Shannon Park being a large piece in a broad redevelopment proposal and like it's been stated, there would be little opposition as little to no one lives there and that the stadium could create an iconic building on the harbour. The draw back is that on top of the money for new roads, sewers, storm water management and other street infrastructure - you now also have to build new transportation to the site (bus and possibly ferry).
With both Willow Park and Canada Post; the site is located with existing transportation already established along Young, Windsor and Robie Street which services much of the suburban communities in Halifax and Bedford as well as the North end, South end and downtown. The other pro (that I see with the Canada Post site) is the fact that you could have one big multipurpose site in one location: the forum and the stadium. This could have tremendous advantages and create a desire to redevelop the area with more high density residential (and inspire HRM to invest money into making the forum better).
There are draw backs though: Windsor park is narrow and the stadium might end up 'squeezed in'. Both sites are currently occupied and would require expropriation or negotiation (land swap?) plus demolition and as someone pointed out - the
existing roads around both sites are 2 to 4 lane - so an event may cause temporary bottlenecks. I suspect that might change if the project began as Windsor could probably be widened to 3 lanes (1 lane multi-directional with traffic flow) and the Bayer's Road Project would widen the street (if it occurs). In addition you'd have the cost of demolition and probably localized sewer/water upgrades (to handle additional capacity).
The big plus for either of the locations is that it keeps the stadium in the regional centre though, which I think is something that's a bonus. I wouldn't be so upset if it ended up in Burnside; since it's pretty much next to what HRM is defining as the regional centre.
Greenfield will always have the benefits of being able to build the road capacity and the site to fit the needs of the operator (since you are pretty much starting with a blank slate). An existing brownfield site (already developed) will always have challenges which will add $. But in this case, I firmly believe that the additional cost (regardless of the location) are worth it if you create something that will draw everyone to the site.
The only thing I would add is that regardless of the location - I'd like to make sure that metro transit gets priority when it comes to servicing the site. Make sure that bus bays are located adjacent to the main entrance (which can also include something like what fenwick had shown previous - a salute to the navy or some other type of decoration like that) and any intersections accessing the adjacent streets (which may become signalized) have transit priority lights allowing them time to queue jump. I'd also recommend that a special set of route numbers be setup for routes to service the site (over and above existing route - if it's located at SP or WP/CP). These routes only run on event days with pre-set scheduled announced a week before the event. So say a set of routes like this:
- 100 - Stadium (Sackville)
- 101 - Stadium (Portland Hills/Penhorn)
- 102 - Stadium (Lacewood)
- 103 - Stadium (Timberlea/Tantallon)
- 104 - Stadium (Bedford)
- 105 - Stadium (Mumford)
The routes would drop off at the stadium and then at designated stops along their routes ending at either major transit stops or major communities (Tantalllon would end where the 33 ends now; at the Tantallon Shopping Centre).
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