MEMORIAL CENTRE REPLACEMENT
Former Petes coach says new downtown arena would be good for the city
The City of London’s downtown tax assessments grew by nearly $500 million annually after building the $46-million Budweiser Gardens.
Kingston’s downtown tax assessments increased 38 per cent in the years following the opening of the Leon’s Centre.
Gary Green, senior director of BBB Architects and Stadium Consultants International, has been building arenas for 31 years following a coaching career that included leading the Peterborough Petes to their lone Memorial Cup win in 1979.
He’s followed the debate in Peterborough about location of a Memorial Centre replacement.
Sierra Planning and Management ranked the Market Plaza and nearby public works property ahead of Morrow Park as potential sites. The Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area has advocated for a downtown location.
Green’s company has built multi-sport entertainment facilities both in downtown cores and on city edges and says the economics are clear.
In Windsor and Brampton, they built useful multi-pad facilities on the edge of town but they’ve had little economic impact on the surrounding area.
In London and Kingston they built entertainment complexes that have revitalized the downtown and paid for themselves many times over.
“In the 1990s, London’s downtown was dying and the Galleria Mall, which was once a great mall, was virtually boarded up because of expansion on the outskirts and big box stores,” Green said. Downtown assessments had decreased by1999 by $60 million and there was plenty of opposition to putting the facility there because it wasn’t seen as an attractive location, said Green.
The building opened in 2002 and by ’13 property assessments had risen from $564 million to $1.054 billion. The annual increase was more than 10 times the facility’s cost.
The increase came from the development of new condominiums, office buildings, restaurants and shops.
The downtown population swelled by 37 per cent, compared to eight per cent in the city as a whole, with the majority between the ages of 24 to 40 and particularly 25 to 29. The city invested $13 0 million on three downtown projects and by 2011 the private sector had invested an additional $360 million with 150 new businesses established in the downtown core.
“The old saying is you have to spend money to make money,” Green said. “The city of London had to make an investment.”
In Kingston the city debated downtown versus vacant land near Highway 401. Green said they recommended downtown as the centrepiece to an entertainment district.
Kingston invested $45 million in the facility and an additional $20 million in a theatre and market and it’s led to downtown assessments growing 38 per cent between 2007 and 2012. The downtown population grew 33 per cent between 2006 and 2011 with 43 per cent of those residents between the ages of 20 to 34 compared to 23 per cent city-wide.
Green’s company was involved in the 2003 Memorial Centre renovations which cost $13 million.
They were unable to convince the city to build a new 5,700seat facility for $30-$5 million. A new facility today is projected to cost $80-$90 million.
Green said the reality is no municipality has money lying around to build these type of facilities nor will they in 10 years or 20 years.
These type of expenditures work best when they’re part of a wider strategic investment to revitalize or grow an area of town.
“These things become like lightning rods. I’ve told one mayor after another that,” he said.
Green said no one questions the location of Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena now but they did before it was built downtown.
“People thought John Bitove, Allan Slaight and our firm were crazy for putting a new arena in downtown Toronto in between the railway tracks and the Gardiner Expressway,” he said.
Green said before and after aerial photos show an area once dominated by dirt parking lots is surrounded by stores, restaurants, hotels and condominiums. The economic impact between 1999 and 2009 is estimated at $2.4 billion.
Green recommends against combining an events centre with a multi-pad recreational facility.
“The recreational facility requires parking because you don’t want families carrying hockey bags long distances. But you don’t want a lot of parking for an events centre because you won’t drive economic growth unless you create foot traffic,” Green said.
“You have to give people a reason to come early and stay late.
“The only way Morrow Park would work as an economic stimulus is if you made it a ‘destination’ with surrounding development.”
Green sees that as a challenge because it’s tucked into a residential area.
“If you make it a destination point and it’s zoned that way and you give up the land to developers to do it that way then could Morrow Park work? Yes it could but don’t just build an arena there and a couple of ice pads and a parking lot.
“Recreational ice pads don’t create economic impact.”