Spending $75M on a new arena is a complex decision

The first of two reports on the future of the Memorial Centre and its possible replacement has given city council a good idea of the challenging decisions it will soon face.

Sierra Planning and Management has produced a detailed overview of the 61-year-old arena’s shortfalls and the potential for a new arena/event centre to attract more concerts.

It concludes that the Mem Centre can’t be upgraded to compete with newer facilities in Kingston, Belleville and Oshawa and that a replacement could do the job.

However, “could” and “potential” qualifiers run through the report, which makes a decision to spend $75 million or more on a new facility difficult. When Sierra’s second report lands in June several key secondary decisions will flow from those core issues.

But let’s start with the basics. As Sierra makes clear, seating, concessions and dressing rooms at the 61-yearold Mem Centre are awkward and antiquated.

The Peterborough Petes reluctantly work around those deficiencies. Concert acts and live events have a choice; they can skip Peterborough, and many do.

The report shows the Mem Centre hosts half as many concerts as arenas in Belleville and Kingston. That’s a costly shortfall. In 2017 net city revenue for an average Petes game was about $12,500, compared to $50,000 for a concert.

Sierra’s research also indicates a strong local appetite for concerts and events. Among nearly 300,000 residents of the Mem Centre’s market area, average annual spending for live sports and entertainment events is $248.

That’s three times as high as in Kingston, two-and-ahalf times Belleville’s total, and 45 per cent higher than in the GTA. If more acts come to a new facility, if heavy spending Central Ontario concert-goers respond, if the city’s population leaps to 115,000 in the next 20 years as the provincial government expects . . .

Then there is the Petes’ situation. While games don’t generate concert-style revenue there are 40 a year, compared to six concerts in 2017. A strong Petes team that makes the playoffs adds additional cash, but a playoff run can no longer be counted on.

Assume city council bets that a new facility will help drive Peterborough to a brighter future. That leaves the spin-off decisions:

1. What happens to the Mem Centre? Sierra will present “repurposing” options in its final, June report. Those will also contain a lot of “ifs.” Beyond economic considerations, the arena is a war memorial and city residents contributed the equivalent of $2.9 million in today’s dollars to build it. It was a unique design by renowned architect Eberhard Ziedler, so architectural heritage will also be in play.

2. Should a facility include a second ice pad to address long-term needs, or is the primary focus the

Petes and a concert/convention centre?

3. Is a downtown location feasible? Add a second pad and fitting it into downtown, which is the city’s unofficial preferred option and the clear choice of the downtown business community, becomes difficult.

4. If not downtown, where else could or should it go?

5. What would a whiz-bang facility cost, and what would Peterborough taxpayers have to pay? How much provincial and federal grant money will be available?

6. Is that cost reasonable?

All those questions will have to be answered before a new “multi-use sport and event centre” gets a green light.

In 2017 net city revenue for an average Petes game was about $12,500, compared to $50,000 for a concert.