Council looking to resume arena talks with Flames
City council has agreed that talks should resume with the Calgary Flames on proposed plans for an entertainment district in Victoria Park centred around a new arena.
In a near unanimous decision Tuesday, council elected to proceed with plans to “re-engage in partnership conversations” with the owners of the Flames. Only Coun. Druh Farrell was opposed. Coun. Shane Keating was absent.
Council’s event centre committee will issue an overture to the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. “right away,” said chair Jeff Davison.
“We’ll probably let them know right away what council decided here today and set up a time to probably meet,” Davison said after Tuesday’s vote.
“First and foremost the question is, do we have a partner at the table with us or not? Once we have that, we can undertake what does a partnership look like.”
Flames CEO Ken King declined to offer a detailed response to council’s decision on Tuesday.
“We are not making any formal comment, but we are looking forward to hearing from them,” King said in a statement.
Councillors heard a repeat of a presentation unveiled by the Calgary Municipal Land Corp. last Friday, detailing plans for redevelopment of the beleaguered neighbourhood on the east side of downtown.
CMLC president Michael Brown told council he believes a new event centre is key to attracting other private investors to the table.
“You have an area that’s been stagnant for many, many years, and so you need to demonstrate to the marketplace that this is going to be different, and the one way you do this is, you spend a dollar of your own and you show that,” Brown said.
“We need to get going on something. The reason that Victoria Park hasn’t been built out isn’t because people haven’t planned — there’s been tons of planning — it’s getting those first steps that’s been problematic.”
No price tag or cost breakdown has been presented for the new arena proposal. CMLC estimates that, once the entire Victoria Park redevelopment is complete, the city could see an additional $50 million to $60 million in annual tax revenue.
The city has asked Calgary Economic Development to conduct an economic analysis of the entertainment district proposal, including the new event centre.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he was “very happy” to see talks resume with the Flames, but questioned whether a new arena is a prerequisite for growth in Victoria Park.
“We have to be very careful when we’re making these statements and that’s why we need to do the analysis,” Nenshi said. “There’s an arena there now and the only difference between the existing arena and a new one would be a few more nights of concerts a year — nobody is building a hotel based on 10 concerts.
“The key question that council has to really attack on this is, ‘What’s different?’ ”
Brown suggested one key difference is that the new proposal better integrates an arena into the wider community. He pointed to renderings commissioned by Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. that suggest the facility would be open to the street rather than just a “big box.”
“We’ve really failed if all we have at the end of the day is an arena surrounded by a bunch of parking lots,” he said.
Several city councillors expressed enthusiasm for the project on Tuesday, praising the decision to discuss the arena within the context of redevelopment plans for the entire neighbourhood.
But Nenshi said the city must be wary of falling into traps that have ensnared other arena projects. He suggested Edmonton’s arena is an example of a project that revitalized one part of the downtown, sucking up investment that might have gone into other parts of the city.
“You have to really look at what’s net new and what’s substitution,” Nenshi said. “I trust that the economic analysis that they’ve (commissioned) will do that.”