$80M Nanaimo event centre not worth risk

In an editorial, the Times Colonist compared the proposed $80-million events centre in Nanaimo with Victoria’s Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre and concluded that this comparatively small mid-Island city should simply “go for it” (“Nanaimo arena worth the risk,” Jan. 26).

With the referendum vote on Saturday, it’s worth examining the props beneath this cheerleading declaration.

The editorial suggests that an events centre would contribute to downtown revitalization, as indeed does the City of Nanaimo’s documentation. Unfortunately, there’s not a scrap of evidence to support this argument, just as there was none about a decade ago when Nanaimo voters were persuaded by a narrow margin to support the construction of what has proved to be a greatly underutilized conference centre.

That an events centre will not have these effects was confirmed last week by Jordan Bateman, Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation B.C. representative, who visited Nanaimo to pour some cold water on the city’s rosy economic forecasts, as well as its overly optimistic business plan.

The proposed centre will potentially seat almost as many hockey fans and big-event supporters as Victoria’s facility, just as the local conference centre can handle as many if not more delegates at one time than the Victoria Conference Centre. That alone should have been a big red flag to local boosters and to the editorial writer, because Nanaimo in so many ways is not Victoria, as the lacklustre performance of the conference centre has shown.

With about 100,000 people, Nanaimo is also not in the same league in terms of area population or the number of citizens with adequate disposable incomes to attend events at an events centre. Nor can it begin to compete as a tourism draw — just witness the anemic performance of our cruise-ship terminal, which counts itself fortunate if it can pull in more than half a dozen ships each season.

Nor does one consultant’s overly expansive view that a Nanaimo events centre might draw upon 400,000 residents in its presumed catchment area — one that evidently extends from the Malahat to Cape Scott and everywhere in between on both coasts. That consultant clearly doesn’t know much about Vancouver Island’s geography or its winter driving conditions.

But apart from mistaken notions about needed capacity and impacts on downtown revitalization and tourism, an events centre could never run at a profit, let alone on a break-even basis, as city hall maintains it will, even though, according to Bateman, no other events centre in B.C. has achieved that wondrous state. It’s an important point, since it is Nanaimo’s taxpayers who will be on the hook for this project if it is approved, and that means other needs will take second place for years to come.

Perhaps most disturbing, because it provides the illusion of expert approval, is the city’s misrepresentation of its commissioned third-party analysis of the proposal. Consultants Ernst and Young were hired to examine the city’s supporting documentation and business plan, as well as to conduct interviews with other centre operators.

In a cover letter attached to the “draft” business plan dated Feb. 22, the city’s chief financial officer states that Ernst and Young was retained “to ensure the highest level of accountability regarding costs and revenue projections.” Yet Ernst and Young states, for its part, that: “Our report is based on facts as we know them, estimates, assumptions and other information … . EY does not represent these estimates as results that are anticipated to be achieved.”

In other words the “highest level of accountability” is really no accountability at all. Nevertheless, if one perseveres through the virtually unfathomable bafflegab one finds in parts of the report, qualified support for the city’s plans is offered — subject to numerous caveats.

Unfortunately, the extent of even that degree of support must be taken with a grain of salt because EY is not exactly what one thinks of as a completely independent — that is, disinterested — third-party assessor. And that’s because it has been promised an ongoing contractual arrangement with the eventscentre project if voters give their approval this Saturday.

There is so much that is wrong with the proposal — I’ve barely scratched the surface here — that the only sensible decision is to defeat it and, if there remains an appetite for the idea after the vote, the city should start from scratch with an entirely different approach.

This particular proposal, in other words, is anything but a “go for it” proposition. It needs a complete rethink. Eric Ricker is a retired Dalhousie University professor of educational policy and public administration who now lives in Nanaimo, his hometown.