Bye Bye Saddledome

[Brewin Flames]

Flames to get new arena under deal between team, governments

11:53 PM ET

• Associated Press

CALGARY, Alberta -- The Calgary Flames will get a new arena to replace the aging Saddledome under a deal between the team's ownership and city and provincial governments.

 

Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. -- which owns the Saddledome and the Flames -- announced the deal on Tuesday, as did the city of Calgary and the Alberta government.

 

The price tag for the arena was estimated at $800 million Canadian ($587 million U.S.), with the entire project estimated to cost $1.2 billion ($880 million U.S.). Among the projects that will be completed alongside the arena are parking, transit improvements, a new community rink and an enclosed plaza.

 

• 5h

The 40-year-old Saddledome seats more than 19,000 for hockey games and hosted hockey and figure skating during the 1988 Winter Olympics.

 

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the city council voted unanimously in favor of the deal on Tuesday.

 

"This is a generational investment in place-making, creating space for community to gather," Gondek said at a news conference on the proposed site for the new arena, close to the Saddledome.

 

The Alberta government is not contributing directly to the arena but said it plans to spend up to $300 million on public transit and road improvements, site utilities, reclamation and other infrastructure. The province is also contributing $30 million to cover half the cost of the 1,000-seat community rink.

 

"Calgary isn't Calgary without the Flames, and Alberta isn't Alberta without the Battle of Alberta," Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said.

 

Smith said last October that the Saddledome has served the community well but can no longer compete with new buildings across North America for events, concerts and sports.

[Math]

The Flames have one of thw worst and old arena of the League, so I think it was about time have something done. However, I heard some strong reluctance from Albertans and taxpayers about the priorities and cost in the current inflation context. I also read numbers like around $850M CAD for this, which is quite huge. As a comparison, we (I mean taxpayers) paid $400M for the useless Centre Vidéotron in QC City but at least Clgary already has an NHL team  Maybe we could ship you our magnificient white elephant for a decent price...

 

Ottawa, you're next.

[JR Ewing]

Field of Schemes never fails to deliver when it comes to reporting on arena/stadium deals:

 

Calgary, Alberta agree to spend $837m on Flames arena just 16 months after saying $300m was their limit

April 26, 2023

Neil deMause

 

Well, that came pretty much out of nowhere:

City officials say they’ve reached a deal in principle to replace Calgary’s aging Saddledome…

The costs, as announced Tuesday, total more than $1.2 billion.

That’s significantly higher than the previous arena estimate, which had increased to $634 million when CSEC, owner of the Flames, withdrew. That deal involved more than $300 million in public money. Talks restarted late last year.

First of all: The CBC said “aging,” everybody drink! Second of all: The reporting is otherwise accurate that since the Flames owners withdrew from their previous arena deal in late 2021, not only has the total cost of the project somehow grown from $550 million to $1.2 billion (the arena itself is now budgeted at $800 million, with the rest for such sundries as a parking garage and the ever-popular “other costs“), but the public’s share has gone from $300 million to $837 million, $537 million of it from the city and $300 million from the province. I’m not 100% sure that this would be the most expensive hockey subsidy of all time — Judith Grant Long, please update your spreadsheets — but I can’t think of one larger. And it certainly seems to be a sign that Flames execs knew what they were doing when they bailed on the previous plan because they didn’t want to pay $10 million in cost overruns.

 

This deal is still far from final: Though the Calgary city council reportedly approved the deal in a unanimous vote yesterday — public hearings, schmublic hearings — nobody knows yet where the provincial money would come from, and there’s a provincial election coming up at the end of May that could change who’s in power. All the same, the Calgary arena situation went from “Public won’t put in more than $300 million, Flames owner says ‘then screw it'” to “Here’s a check for $837 million, don’t spend it all at once” in a relative eyeblink.

 

More once the dust settles, I’m sure, but this is a major raising of the bar for indoor sports arena subsidies, coming the same day Nashville already raised the bar on outdoor sports arena subsidies, in a city that was once known for holding the line on sports subsidies. It’s a good day to be a sports billionaire, no matter what sport, and no matter what country.

 

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/04/26/19896/calgary-alberta-agree-to-spend-837m-on-flames-arena-just-16-months-after-saying-300m-was-their-limit/

 

Well, what do you know; the provincial government, only a month before a provincial election, all of a sudden found hundreds of millions of dollars to spend in Calgary within days of the worst polling they've ever done in the city of Calgary. I'm sooooo surprised.

 

 

[Icechipper]

Construction costs and inflation pushed this higher, I would imagine. Didn't see a target completion date but has two be at least 20 months out....thanks for sharing article. Be interesting to see when all this work is bid.

[JR Ewing]

Calgary officials to keep Flames arena details secret until after election, this is fine and normal

April 27, 2023

Neil deMause

 

More news following Tuesday’s surprise announcement that the city of Calgary and province of Edmonton plan to spend $837 million in public money on a new arena for the Flames, just over a year after saying anything over $300 million was too pricey:

• Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she hopes the arena doesn’t become a campaign issue in May 29’s provincial elections, and she and city officials have apparently found a way to accomplish this: According to opposition leader Rachel Notley, “When we asked for more detail [and] if we could get a copy of the agreement, we were told no. All parties have agreed that agreement must remain confidential for six to eight weeks.” (Smith’s office denied that there are any secret agreements, saying all financial details are on the city’s website; all I could find was this report to the city council, which includes a reference to several attachments of “restricted executive summaries of the key deal terms,” none of which are actually attached.) Not sure how exactly that works out in metric weeks, but it certainly means that Smith gets to have the campaign boost of announcing a new arena for the Flames without having to say how precisely the project finances will work — who will get arena revenues? naming rights money? will the Flames pay property taxes? how binding will the team’s lease be? — until after the vote.
• A city councillor in Edmonton is griping that they didn’t get any provincial funding for their team’s hockey arena, and suggesting that maybe the province could kick in some money to build additional development near the Oilers arena. Smith’s response: “We’re prepared to have a conversation as well if there’s additional work that we need to do in Edmonton so that both of our downtowns in Calgary and Edmonton can grow together.”
• “Calgary tackles housing crisis by spending $867 million on new home for the Flames,” reports The Beaverton, concluding: “At press time, most politicians in Alberta were falling over themselves to agree with the arena deal because hockey good.” A+, no notes!

Seems like there’s still a chance that the Flames arena funding will become an issue in the provincial elections, and that Notley’s opposition New Democratic Party, if elected, could throw a wrench into things. Or, you know, not, since then they wouldn’t have an election coming up, and also hockey good. Guys, I think we may have found some bugs in representative democracy, we might want to pull it from distribution until we can issue a patched version.

 

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/04/27/19899/calgary-officials-to-keep-flames-arena-details-secret-until-after-election-this-is-fine-and-normal/

 

[radoran]

12 hours ago, JR Ewing said:

this is fine and normal

 

We have long since normalized billionaires blackmailing politicians to finance the billionaires' private interests on the backs of ordinary people who will then be charged exorbitantly to attend events in the arenas they helped finance.

 

And that's #hockeyrelated

 

[thegx.ca]

Yup politicians using public tax dollars to try and buy votes haha not at all surprising...

[Math]

Still, the Flames need an arena 

 

But yeah, I fully agree with you @radoran @Villella McMeans