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I'll agree with you again. In Sacramento I'm dealing with the same set of morons who oppose high speed rail because 'it's a socialist boondoggle that should be built with private money or not at all!' who then get all glossy-eyed at the prospect of Sacramento having to spend over $2 billion (maybe even $8 billion) so we can have a stupid arena in the downtown.

How's that work?

The arena is only supposed to cost maybe as much as $500 million (factoring in anticipated cost overruns).

But then because it is in a flood zone the local freeway interchanges and surface streets will have to be modified to allow the arean to be evacuated in under 60 minutes in an emergency. Cost $500 million.

The water intake and filtration plant for downtown that's been just fine since 1927 will have to be rebuilt in order to handle the increased demand with an arena. Cost $1 billion according to the rosy estimates and as much as $3 billion according to the less rosy estimates.

Then the regional water treatment plant has to be expanded and upgraded to deal with the anticipated sewage and runoff from the new complex. Cost $2 billion to $4 billion.

Light rail and the transportation hub have to be moved. Cost $70 million, maybe as much as $100 million.

That brings us up to as much as $8.1 billion dollars so ten illiterate troglodytes can run around a basketball court and while their billionaire, playboy owners suck up all of the profits.

And high speed rail is a rip off?

   

I hope Sacramento can learn from Toronto's mistakes, Bart. SkyDome was supposed to cost $150M to build when ground broke in 1986. When it was completed in 1989, the final cost was nearly $600M (that's damn near $1B in 2012 dollars). In 2004, the dome was sold to Ted Fucking Rogers for $25M. The province of Ontario ate the difference. So Rogers basically stole $900M from Ontario tax payers and he gets to further fuck me for $2K a year for my Jays tickets and $12 per beer. I didn't cry the day he died.

   

Well, as I said in the first post, I'm torn.

I see the need for a new arena but also think that Katz should foot more than $100 million if he wants to keep all the profits (concession, parking, etc) for himself. The existing arena is run by a non-profit organization and it re-invests 100% of its profits from its facilites and events back in to the city, so it isn't really comparable to this new arena IMHO.

Ideally, he'd pay for the whole thing and keep all the profits - I'd have no problem with that.

But for some reason, the Mayor and most of City Council are convinced that somehow Edmontonians (as well as Albertans and Canadians - if the other levels of government kick in some cash) should pay for most of it.

I'm of the opinion that if we are paying for it, then the profits from the arena should go back to city/province/federal coffers.




In fairness, the City has been trying to get this built for some time, so none of these expenses apply in this situation - if anything, they've done good work making sure that things like LRT lines and such provide services but do not impact the proposed site.

Still, if public money is paying for something, I think the public deserves to see that money repaid - not go into the coffers of a corporation.




I don't think so - I'd love to see some high speed lines in North America.

The problem in most places is a lack of density - it makes little econmic sense to build one coast to coast in Canada because so much of it is under-populated. However, in certain corridors (Edmonton-Calgary, Toronto - Montreal, San Fran - San Diego, etc), I think it is a economically sound.

   

If the city wants to provide a loan to make it happen, but with ironclad guarantees that the loan will be repaid, maybe that makes sense. But what you're talking about, what every city seems to do, is subsidize major league sports, while whining about how they have no money for infrastructure etc. What's so spatial about mj sports that they deserves subsidies? Joe the Plumber will be all for building this arena, all the while bitching about his city tax bill.

   

At least Edmonton wants to build it where every arena should be built. Downtown. Don't follow Ottawa's logic they could of built it at Lebreton Flats, pretty much downtown. But no, lets put it out in the sticks, Barhave, aka Farhaven. I've only been there once and it wasn't to see a hockey game. If it was built downtown I would of been there more than once I'mpretty sure.

   

Most arenas are built downtown. One of the problems is they cause urban blight. Also of course the land is very expensive and would have a higher return with a different investment. In Vancouver our stadiums are downtown, but very few people live in the area - everybody drives/transits there. I think it would make more sense to move the stadia out to Surrey, where the customers are.

   

The problem people had with it in Ottawa, like every entertainment based project that comes up is we get the NIMBY crowd wailing at city hall. They weren't as much concern as the arena being a blight, but it was traffic, noise, pollution, to much fun will be had, some of your neighbours maybe happy etc..

They want to build a Casino in Ottawa, that's the next project. I bet this one ends up in the sticks.

   

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