King begins courtship of Calgary
Plans for sports complex unveiled, now work begins on selling the idea
Ken King has unveiled his grand vision for what a new sports complex can mean to Calgary, but the real work of selling the project is still ahead.
One surefire platform to build a campaign around is the Pedro Sanchez model from the movie Napoleon Dynamite:
“Vote for me and all your wildest dreams will come true.”
Ken King isn’t actually running for elected office and he wisely stopped short of throwing in the wildest dreams bit.
But it’s a pretty audacious sales pitch he uncorked Tuesday to woo this city, full of the usual talk of legacies and visions and community revitalization and civic pride and the overall good of Calgary- kind. At the proposal’s base: A 19,000- to- 20,000- seat arena to replace the aging Scotiabank Saddledome and house the NHL Calgary Flames and WHL Hitmen.
A multi- sport field house that would contain a 30,000- seat football stadium to accommodate the CFL Stampeders, with retractable seats to cover a running track and bring fans close to the action, a FIFA- sized soccer pitch ( with no designs, for now, on pursuing an MLS franchise) basketball courts and other family friendly facilities. That’s the good news. A possible $ 690 million tax hit — through a $ 240- million City Revitalization Levy, $ 250- million ticket tax for citizens in various guises and $ 200 million to build the field house complex — the bad.
It’s a big ask and CalgaryNEXT’s ability convince the fence- sitters of its importance to the city as a whole will make or break the deal.
But at least now — mercifully — the blueprint is out there. After weeks, months, even years of speculation on the highly flammable subject, the proposal can be debated and examined, applauded or scorned.
When asked if a Plan B was hidden in reserve, filed away under lock and key should this one come a- cropper, King didn’t hesitate in answering. “Nope.” Which was as close to delivering a ransom note as there was on Tuesday.
This day, as all early days in such a process, was primarily about possibilities and benefits. And, yes, there are certain enticing aspects to the proposal.
There's no denying the facilities housing the two big teams in this town are antiquated, particularly when watching new football stadiums rise in Winnipeg, Regina and Hamilton, as well as Rogers Arena set to open in Edmonton in 2016 for those dastardly Oilers.
The Saddledome, built in 1983, may resemble an aging courtesan, wrinkled and frayed and way past its best- before date, but it still looks like Angelina Jolie in a skimpy bikini next to the circa- 1961 McMahon Stadium ( you half expect the late, great Don Luzzi to leap out and broadside you while loitering in the beer lineup).
The fact that the deep- pocketed gents backing the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Group are willing to sink $ 200 million of THEIR OWN CAPITAL at least takes a bit of the edge off the whopping public tariff required to realize the vision. The ticket tax, pocketed from only those using the aforementioned facilities, would bring in an estimated $ 250 million of the bill.
There's an undeniably feel- good, populist component in the longsoughtafter fieldhouse, much needed in this city. And the cleanup of the environmentally damaged area down by the Bow would be a tremendous thing.
Still, even as King was delivering his pitch to the media Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Naheed Nenshi was reiterating from a trip to Africa that there is no money to fund professional sports entities. King seemed nonplussed. “We've got to,” he countered, “create a sufficiently compelling case that all Calgarians will look at this and say ‘ You know what, this is something we think should happen.'
“When people decide that something should happen, it's astonishing how money can be discovered.”
A timeline for the project, assuming it gets off the ground?
“At a gallop,” replied King, “if we were to cut the ribbon on a project like this in five years” — two for haggling, and three to build — “we'd be very, very happy. I don't know if that's particularly ambitious, but it's somewhat ambitious.”
Is this proposal a good idea? From a purely sporting perspective, undeniably.
Is it a project, regardless of how audacious, that enough Calgarians can be swayed to fund? That's what remains to be determined.
There was always going to be a percentage of the populace — not to mention media — that'd fall all over themselves to climb aboard, regardless of the components. Because, well, these are the Flames, after all.
Convincing the skeptics and fence- sitters is King's job now, and he can be a pretty persuasive fellow when he puts his mind to it.
Nothing concrete came out of Tuesday's announcement. But at least with the official disclosure, people can judge Plan A — the only plan they've got — for themselves.
King wasn't promising that all your dreams will come true, but he's banking on there being enough of them in this proposal for you to back the bid.
The wooing has only begun in earnest.
Getting to the altar is going to take some serious courtship.