The City says CalgaryNEXT isn’t feasible in present form or location

THE RUNDOWN

• The City accepted the $890 million estimated cost of the facility itself at face value because they noted the designs are currently in the “concept stage.” Meaning it could very well end up costing more, depending on the actual design of the buildings.

• In addition to those costs, the city estimated between $863 and $936 million would be required for “land, municipal infrastructure, environmental remediation, and financing.” (The range is because they investigated two different strategies for creosote remediation.) That would bring the total cost of the whole shebang – assuming that the concept doesn’t become more expensive – at between $1.7 and $1.8 billion. The cost to the City would be between $1.2 and $1.3 billion, depending on how the ticket tax money is financed (and which creosote strategy is used).

• In regards to the remediation two options were presented: an expedited approach and a measured approach. The expedited approach would just dig everything up, clean the whole area and be done with it, costing $140 million but getting everything done in 6-8 years with continuous construction throughout. The measured approach would basically just involve doing the minimal amount of digging required and doing some decontamination on-site, costing $85 million but taking 8-10 years to complete with more of a seasonal approach to construction and development. The report mentioned a few small-scale funding options, but noted that no larger provincial or federal funds have been ear-marked for such a project.

• The combined stadium/fieldhouse concept itself appears to work, but the report mentioned challenges in regards to the Stampeders sharing the facility (and the CFL team eating up a lot of “prime-time hours” in the facility):

• It’s noted in the report that further study is needed to determine the compromises and challenges, and that the CSEC indicated they’d be willing to work with the City to mitigate compromises. (In other words, they’d be willing to help make the partnership work.)

• Related: The cost of modernizing McMahon Stadium was estimated at between $69 to $89 million by the McMahon Stadium Society, which would theoretically fix many of the issues with the building and make it usable for another 25-30 years.

• The estimated value of a Community Revitalization Levy for the West Village was given as $345 million without a commercial anchor tenant and $435 million, with the lower figure noted as more likely (and that there was no guarantee that the province would grant a CRL). It was noted in the report that the amounts in the range provided wouldn’t be enough to cover the facility, infrastructure, land remediation and financing, and that the figures were likely subject to a lot of variation due to the real estate and other market forces.

THE MAIN CONCERNS

1. There will be significant costs incurred by the City to support the facility (and the estimates rely on the assumption that both parts of the facility will never be used at the same time).
2. The funding model isn’t fully aligned with the principle that public money should be used for public benefits. (There are some access concerns for the public, in particular related to having the Stampeders use the fieldhouse a lot.)
3. In a related concern, feedback from stakeholder groups was “either neutral or unsupportive of the West Village location and/or the incorporated fieldhouse concept.”
4. The cost of the proposal would force the City to have to choose between funding this project and other high-priority areas.
5. The development time in the West Village is quite long (9-13 years) and dominated by environmental remediation. (This also connects with some of their concerns about CRLs, which are set at 20 years by legislation and might expire if there are any unforeseen delays.)

NEXT STEPS