CalgaryNEXT project on hold
City and Flames group negotiating over Plan B for Victoria Park site
Ken King says the proposed arena-stadium-field house complex in the West Village, known as CalgaryNEXT, is on hold as Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. officials discuss an alternative plan with city hall.
“We’re not talking about CalgaryNEXT; we put the pause button on that,” King, the CEO of the group that owns the Flames, Hitmen, Roughnecks and Stampeders, told Postmedia in a year-end interview on Monday.
Instead, King said the two sides are meeting regularly to discuss a potential event centre in Victoria Park.
“We were asked if we would actually defer CalgaryNEXT in the interest of negotiating, talking about the Victoria Park site,” King explained.
“We indicated that we would not ... abandon it, but we would pause it. So, by no means that meant that we were not interested in continuing to pursue it, because we were. And ultimately, regardless, (CalgaryNEXT) will be compared to any Victoria Park option.”
King said he’s both happy and anxious to understand what the city’s Plan B looks like and he expects more clarity in the first quarter of 2017. When the city’s substitute plan first publicly surfaced in June, it included a new arena and event centre on the Stampede grounds, a field house in the northwest and some renovation of McMahon Stadium, home of the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League.
“I think Plan B has some potential,” King said. “The unfortunate aspect of it, it does orphan McMahon Stadium. There’s no McMahon Stadium solution. And I’m unclear about how they’re going to deal with the field house.”
A field house has long been the city’s top unfunded recreation priority. Murray Sigler, executive director and CEO of Sport Calgary, said Wednesday the possibility of a stand-alone field house in the northwest is being discussed.
“(City administration has) been having a regular dialogue with us in the months since the summer,” Sigler said.
He says there’s appetite for a CalgaryNEXT alternative, pointing to the city’s new capital investment plan, which highlights spurring economic growth through a northwest innovation hub and an innercity cultural and entertainment district on the Stampede grounds.
“The discussions have been leaning towards the non-integrated alternative more and more over the past year,” he said. “If it comes out that way, we’ll still be better off because we’ll satisfy both a new facility for the Flames and the indoor field house for amateur sport.
“CalgaryNEXT was a powerful, transformative vision, but it was a complex one.”
King is confident the 33-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome — home of the hockey Flames and Hitmen and lacrosse Roughnecks — will be replaced, whether via the ambitious $890-million CalgaryNEXT proposal unveiled in 2015 spanning several blocks near the Bow River in the creosote-contaminated West Village, or the city’s yet-tobe-unveiled Plan B.
“I just think everybody accepts and understands that there is every likelihood that there will be a new facility in the city, across the city,” he said. “We still feel strongly that CalgaryNEXT is a good option, but we appreciate that it’s fiscally challenging for the city, and I think the mayor has been quite outspoken on that point.”
In April, a city report pegged the cost of CalgaryNEXT at $1.8 billion, more than double the price tag put forward in 2015 when the ownership group presented a blueprint to remake the west side of downtown.
King has disputed the city’s estimate and said the bill would be $1.3 billion before financing, if land remediation is included.
Earlier this month, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said, “Both of those numbers are unattainable in this economy.”
In June, council voted 12-3 to keep the CalgaryNEXT proposal on the table and asked city administration to report back in October on the pitch and Plan B, a timeline that’s been postponed to 2017.
Sixteen months after the Flames organization first unveiled its plans for a new arena, stadium and field house, King said he’s hopeful there will be progress in the new year.
“2017 should be the year that we drop the flag and actually get past the starting line and into the race and get some serious work done,” he said.