Mall arena failure destined by blinkered focus
Pending decision to quash Lime Ridge proposal predictable in a city blinded by its downtown
There’s a line near the beginning of the city staff report recommending the quashing of the Lime Ridge Mall arena idea that speaks volumes.
“The proposed Lime Ridge Mall development would result in a significant amount of investment, assessment growth and net new taxes on the existing
FirstOntario Centre and Lime Ridge sites,” the report says. “However, moving a major amenity such as an arena out of the downtown core could negatively impact the amount of investment that the City could expect to see in its downtown moving forward.”
Did you catch it? Building at the mall would help. Leaving an arena in the core could help.
Big difference. One suggests a sure thing. The other implies hope and a gamble. So why will Bulldogs’ owner Michael
Andlauer’s idea almost certainly be crushed when the report lands in front of city councillors next week?
“They want it downtown no matter what,” Ward 7 Coun. Esther Pauls says. “None of the councillors have an appetite for the Mountain.”
That’s a damning statement. Yet it’s hardly a unique perspective. Plenty of people around town feel the same way. Despite the fact that this is a big, sprawling city, any big, flashy projects must be downtown the sentiment goes.
As a result we’ll stick with the status quo (the phrase the report uses for the downtown arena option) even without a real plan at this point. Even without $30 million in private money. And potentially without a tenant for the building which another report has said is an absolute must. Abandoning the bird in hand for a bird in the bush.
“It’s predestined,” Pauls says. This can’t be a surprise. Few really expected a recommendation that the arena go anywhere but the core. Anything else wouldn’t be in keeping with the city’s strategic plan. To that end, the staff report certainly reads like a document that was all about making the case for downtown.
For example, the report points out that Cadillac Fairview — which owns the mall — has said it has plans to redevelop the property at some point at a cost of roughly $890 million, adding more than 3,000 new residents to the area and providing 1,720 permanent jobs. An arena project would accelerate that.
“However Cadillac Fairview staff was not able to commit to a timeline or their proposed phasing.”
So credibility requires a locked-down timeline? Interesting. What’s the city’s naileddown timeline for its downtown development?
The report says there are no hotels within walking distance of the mall even as it points out Cadillac Fairview’s redevelopment plans could include 250 rooms on site. Meanwhile, when talking about downtown hotel room expansion, it weirdly mentions a hotel in the works on Upper James and a planned hotel at the McMaster Innovation Park, nearly five kilometres away.
The report says moving an arena out of the downtown could negatively affect future investment there. But as Andlauer pointed out earlier this week, there’s been an entertainment cluster — arena, concert hall, convention facility, art gallery — downtown for close to 40 years. It clearly hasn’t been a magical elixir for all that ails the area.
The report says a Mountain arena “would require the City to revisit its transit strategy to better service Lime Ridge Mall.” This is a bad thing? With all the talk about improving transit these days, how is this a negative?
On top of everything else comes the old refrain from some corners that it would be a mistake to build in the suburbs. Which is true. Yet the report points out that there are 26,052 people living within one kilometre of Lime Ridge, compared to 11,478 within a kilometre of the current arena.
You catch that? The Mountain area is more densely populated than the downtown. It’s hardly the middle of nowhere.
“They choose the metrics that they deem important and I don’t necessarily agree with those metrics,” says Ward 14 Coun. Terry Whitehead.
Let’s be clear, neither arena option is perfect and nobody is arguing they are. You can poke holes in both proposals and find fault and weaknesses with either location. It’ll cost the city millions to build on the Mountain or millions to maintain the old barn.
Yet the predictable insistence that a project remain in the core just leads to the view so many are now holding that when big projects are involved, the city too often has blinders on that seemingly only point downtown. Which is a shame.
Hamilton is more than just the core. Ask the folks in Dundas and Stoney Creek and Ancaster and Flamborough and Waterdown and on the Mountain. People who surely believe that city building doesn’t mean building only part of the city.