New arena deal dead as Saddledome continues to age
Posted Jan 4, 2022 1:56 pm.
Last Updated Jan 4, 2022 2:59 pm.
Calgary could have seen construction underway this month on a new arena. Instead, the deal between the City of Calgary and the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) is dead.
“We have always believed that Calgary needs a new event centre,” said corporation president and CEO John Bean in a statement.
“However, under the current circumstances, we do not see a path forward that would create a viable partnership with the city, which is essential for a new Event Centre to become a reality.”
WATCH: CityNews’ Jasmine Vickaryous reports on the deal for a new Calgary event centre being axed ahead of construction.
Moshe Lander from the Department of Economics at Concordia University in Montreal explains there hasn’t been any money lost with this deal falling through.
“I don’t think that there’s really any long-term economic consequence here,” he said. “In the short-run where there might have been some lost revenue, the fact is that the pandemic is doing its best to make sure that that’s not going to be a factor here because we’re talking about reduced arena capacities anyway.”
Lander predicts the CSEC and the City will speak again once both parties get a chance to cool off.
“This doesn’t feel like a quick resolution to me where you know both sides are going to jump back to the table and say ‘oh yeah, it was just a misunderstanding, let’s get ‘er done,'” said Sportsnet 960 The Fan’s Stephen Brunt on Tuesday.
The Flames previously said they intend to stay in the Saddledome for now.
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Flames pledge to remain in Saddledome after new arena deal collapses
Lander suggests the next play for the CSEC will be to highly leverage the fact that other cities, such as Houston and Quebec, would be interested in an NHL team. Something Brunt believes could be nothing more than a bluff.
“I’m sure threats will be made, and I’m sure there’ll be stories leaked and they’ll be ‘oh somebody’s been invited to Houston to kick the tires on something.’ I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” said Brunt.
“Where would you rather be selling hockey tickets than in Canada? You know, where the most people like hockey.”
Meantime, Lander says the city is likely to say “go ahead, try and find a better deal,” being that Calgary has a “deep, passionate fan base, that has a long history with this team.”
From a city point of view, Brunt says building an arena is about sprucing up a neighbourhood, attracting other events, and for the sake of civic identity and pride.
“The myth that arenas create money, they just re-direct it so you know it’s money that would have been spent somewhere else that’s spent there,” said Brunt.
“I know leagues and teams forever have made the argument that, you know, they are massive contributors to the economy, they’re just not. It always comes down to this idea that, you know, that it’s a good, sound business investment. It almost is never a good sound business investment from the public’s eye.”
Originally, Lander explains construction would have started on a new arena this month and it would have taken approximately three years to get up and running, barring no surprises.
Despite the deal being done, he says there’s not a large window before negotiations have to start again since the Saddledome is nearly 40 years old.
“That Saddledome continues to age, it does need to be replaced so this is a story that’s not going away for a prolonged period,” he said.
“A new arena doesn’t just materialize overnight.”
Lander says no one is saying we should keep the arena.
“It’s merely a matter of who should be paying for it? And if there are public funds, what role should the municipal government play in the development of that new arena?”
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The city was prepared to put up a quarter of a billion dollars and change, but Lander wonders, why should the city have to pay for this?
“You have a company that is run by billionaires and that is run for-profit. The default position should be they should have to pay for this arena. Anything that the city wants to throw in is a bonus,” he said.
“The ownership group should pay all of that money, and the fans that use it can pay through ticket surcharges if the ownership group feels that they can pass the cost along.”
Lander recalls back in 2017 when Calgary city council voted not to support the CalgaryNEXT project in the West Village along the Bow River.
“And at the time, the mayor kind of killed that one saying ‘no, like we’re not going to put all of this into one package, let’s just deal with the arena, and then we’ll talk about the other stuff at a later time,'” he said.
“I could very easily see that when this (discussion) restarts, the starting point is going to be let’s go back to the idea of some sort of integrated arena, event centre, field-house, football stadium all-in-one, and let’s go from there.”
CityNews has reached out to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek for comment on the future of an arena deal.
– With files from CityNews Staff
