The arena was supposed to be a little over $600 million a couple years ago and Flames ownership balked at some unexpected additional costs so the deal was cancelled. Now the deal is reportedly $1.2 billion for the arena, parking lot, etc?!
Are there any specifics of how much the arena will cost on its own? How big and how much will the parkade cost and was this a part of the original $600 million budget for the first arena proposal? What is the etc.? Someone mentioned a community club? Anything else as part of the etc.? A plaza/gathering place? Some office/residential/hotel buildings involved.
I get that costs have increased with inflation, but increasing by 100% in a couple years seems like insanity. You expect billion dollar arenas in places like New York and LA where labour and land are insanely expensive.
Many construction materials doubled and tripled in costs during the pandemic and we still have occasional shortages. Lumber prices are still up there and from what I understand, concrete is even higher. Gondek blowing up the deal about sidewalks and a few million in things like solar panels and other things and just basically nickel and diming the project was dumb.
Others have already posted the breakdowns.
They had a single multi-billion
deficit. But the province was in a far better spot to finance the Edmonton arena vs. the Calgary one.
In 2011 they were still in the black as the PCs generally ran shoe-string, but balanced budgets. Meanwhile the provincial government is coming off its two biggest deficits ever in b2b years.
This deal creates zilch in the way of a new tax base, and has zero way to see a return on the public money spent. This isn't spending on infrastructure, or a new residential/business district, it's near 1 billion in public money on a vanity project
And yes, timing matters. But I think we can agree the Albertan/Canadian/Global economy was better in 2011, than here in 2023 where people are struggling with inflation. Are you happy to see a frivolous increase on your tax bill?
No, it does actually allows the city to recoup. Just indirectly. That area is supposed to spike in property taxes as soon as more residential goes up as well as a business area pops up/traffic to nearby areas like the red mile increases.
Happy for the increase to the tax bill? No. But there are dumber things for the city to waste money on. This one to revitalize the downtown core isn't the worst of them. At least this isn't an Olympic bid, but honestly speaking, there's rumblings that with some new infrastructure upgrades, this is likely coming down the pipeline anyways, even though Calgarians already shot down a 2026 bid via referendum a few years ago.
I have no problem with a new arena being built as long as the Flames pay for everything. They have to purchase land from the city at market value, pay for the arena itself and pay taxes on the arena when its done.
They can't. The city refused to sell or lease the land for the project. That's why they had to be partners on this one. Had the city sold the land, it'd be privately funded. The city refused because they think the land will skyrocket and as such basically demanded to be a partner. As much as I'm not happy with the CSEC, this isn't totally on the CSEC. The city demanded to be a business partner with the business acumen of a trust fund baby.
Exactly this.
Do oil or tech or whichever companies ask for public money when they erect their headquarters in Calgary?
I know that ofter they get some sort of tax incentive but seeing as both CSEC and say, Husky for example, are private corporations, why does one require millions in public money for the construction of their operating space and the other doesn't?
Have been beating this drum for a long time, and there are enough examples of other municipalities having their professional sports ownerships pay for their own private arenas. Why can't Calgary?
No, but they aren't required to be in a specific area like this and required to partner with the local government who owns the land and refuses to sell or lease the land.
Calgary can't because they refuse the sell the land. IIRC, in Edmonton, Katz bought up a ton of the land in the area by the arena. Most of the other arenas are in a similar situation where they could buy the land.
If you look at cash flow, the city of Calgary puts up very little. Their assets are worth high FMV, but low cash flow value. CSEC puts up like 80% of the cash flow for the whole project. That's why they'd hold out. The provincial part I don't know if it's funding or loan or whatever and there's a huge difference between the two. Loan CSEC is on the hook for principal + interest. Funding, it's basically money into the project. CSEC takes a huge chunk, but the city keeps a bunch too because they are partners in the deal and have ownership of certain things.
How's climate change dumb?
Rather the Alberta government invest in roads, schools, or hospitals than Murray Edwards.
Oilers managed to build an arena without Provincial funds.
Climate change isn't dumb, but I have no faith in Gondek from finding a way to do dumb things in the name of climate change. They'd be projects loosely related to climate change/green, but would actually not be beneficial overall to climate change/green energy.
No offence, but you’re exactly the type of voter that the government loves to take advantage of.
Stay in school kids.
To be fair, Gondek has been problematic. I wouldn't put it past her to think that certain colors of paint are positive towards reducing climate change or haphazardly placed and ugly solar panels to power a random light pole in the district (not all) and that these badly built projects don't come with repair and maintenance costs in short order.
If it's done nicely and done well, I'll eat crow. But I know people who work at the city and anecdotes about Gondek's management attitude and business acumen worry me.
So from what I'm reading the funding from the province isn't even official, it'll be finalized after the election. Seems like a potential gong show.
Also not really sure what to make of the overall provincial funding as it doesn't really sound like any of it is for the arena itself. Seems like it's money for roads and such which from what I'm seeing both Calgary and Edmonton have similar funds in that department.
So if anything Calgary people that are opposed to the arena should be more pissed off than anything. As the money going to these upgrades is just taking away from other potential infrastructure projects.
Like... the ultra delayed green line because of redoing analysis over and over and doing more public discussions? Money spent on investigating a Olympic bid? Money spent on external consultants re-investigating deals the city has made?
TBH, not many Calgarians are celebrating in the streets about this. But I guess the silver lining is at least most of the money will end up in the hands of Calgarians and we'll see the end result vs lining more out of town lawyers and consultants bank accounts. Here at least money flows to the construction workers in the area and directly helps the local economy by injecting a ton of money into it.
We know the burbs are going to get spikes in property taxes to pay for the infrastructure costs. We are one of the few provinces to receive carbon tax refunds. Carbon tax refunds could lower/disappear...
God forbid the government suddenly suggests a PST though. I'm not against the concept of a PST, but I don't trust people who think fiscal and financial are completely interchangeable to use money wisely (the words are not interchangeable. it's like a square vs rectangle situation. many similarities, but many specific differences).
