Calgary Flames arena saga: the City still wants to build a new one

• A few members of council ragged on the process.
• A few members of council ragged on Mayor Gondek for (a) not looping the rest of council in and (b) unilaterally killing the deal. Turns out, neither of those claims were true: several members of council reported speaking regularly to Gondek and her staff prior to the deal’s fate going public on Dec. 21, and the City’s legal department confirmed that the deal ended because neither the Flames nor the City decided to extend the construction deadline.
  • A couple members of council claimed that if there had been an emergency meeting of council to discuss this issue during the holidays, the deal would still be alive. Sure, they’re free to claim that, but unless they found a pile of money or could somehow fix worldwide supply chain issues and construction supply shortages, it wouldn’t have eliminated the massive riskiness of the project.
• A few members of council got clarification from city administration that the much-maligned climate-related expenses in the project were there the whole time as part of a project mandate – set in 2020 – to pursue LEED Silver certification. So the notion that the City pulled the old switcheroo on the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation and dropped in expenses at the last minute while twirling their cartoonish mustaches simply isn’t the case.
• The sidewalk and roadway expenses recently discussed were due to the sideways and roadways needing to be ripped up more or less completely for the development. CSEC was to be on the hook for the sidewalks within the property line, while the City was going to cover all of the roadway costs.
• The total expenditures so far were between $23 and $24 million, so CSEC and the City are both on the hook for about $12 million each – the remainder of their funds will be returned to them once everything’s been tallied up.
• The total price tag for the proposed building was reportedly about six months away from being tallied up. Based on the way the agreement was written, the City and CSEC were functionally being asked to sign off on a construction budget for a budget that wasn’t fully scoped out yet, and construction would’ve begun in January or February without knowing the full cost. (If you ask me, they might’ve dodged a bit of a bullet here…)

• The City passed a motion reaffirming that they want a cultural and entertainment district that includes an “event centre” (arena, for those not fluent in City Hall speak).
• They’re re-establishing the Event Centre Assessment Committee, which struck the original deal, to help shepherd the process towards a new deal.
• They’re engaging a third party to determine (a) if CSEC is interested in being involved in a new deal and (b) seeing what other options are out there for participants in a new deal.

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