** You are confusing Montreal with Quebec City. The provincial capital actually has a very solid record when it comes to fiscal responsability in the construction of public infrastructure. The mayor has been clear that very strict guidelines and constant oversight will be put in place. Renovations will be made on the old Arena because the Quebec City's Remparts are actually playing there and city officials are assuming that a NHL team might have to play there for a couple of years. We might have more details about that particular point sooner than later...
Construction will begin in september, following the end of Expo Québec, which basically is the biggest agricultural fair Eastern Canada, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The construction should be completed by autumn 2015. The news was announced sunday and certain details about the arena emerged, including certain cutbacks in order to respect the budget.
- Construction cost: $400M (estimated construction cost actually is $326,5M and a sum of $73,5M is put aside for risks and contingencies)
- Out of the bugget, $46M will be geared towards state of the art sound and video technology.
- 18000 seats
- The surface area covered by the Arena will be 64000m2, which is smaller than the 68000m2 originally planned in order to save a substantial amount of money.
- Quebecor will pay $65M for naming rights, $5M/year to use the amphitheater and about $40M to built diffusion and broadcasting technology infrastructure. The city will inject $200M and the Provincial government will pay the balance (up until $400M), though cost overruns are to be handled solely by the City.
- Purchasing rights to the 86 corporate boxes have already been sold and about 4100 individual purchasing rights have been sold as well and it has been very busy since yesterday. The purchasing rights basically give you access to a presell for your seat for every show, match or event taking place in the new amphitheater. 8000 such rights are available out of the 18000 seats. These purchasing rights will inject an additional $35M of private money.
- It won't be situated on the site originally chosen because this particular piece of land was heavily contaminated and it would have cost an additionnal $45M to decontaminate it preceeding the construction. On the following picture, the red circle indicates the original site whereas the blue one indicates the actual construction site, on the race track which closed this year.
Important fact: the facade of the race track is considered an heritage building. Hence, it will be integrated to the design of the new Arena. I wasn't sure about that at first but the more i think about it, the more I believe that if done properly, the inclusion of this beautiful brick facade could really give an impressive result!! The grounds in front of the race track will be transformed in a grand entrance. The final design will be revealed in a couple of months though additional details will be delivered shortly.
The surrounding area is a mix of commercial, residential and industrial, though the industrial land use is fairly limited. The city does hope that the construction of the new Arena will incite major private investment in the area and already, it seems to be working. In the last few months, real estate (both commercial and residential) have been on fire and buying offers seem to be flying around.
In the following picture, the blue circle surrounds the Fleur de Lys shopping mall. The owner of this mall has already said that plans are on the way to upgrade the infrastrure through some major investments.
The area delimited by the orange line is occupied by some light industry companies and I do wonder what this sector will look like in the future. It isn't a big area but it is strategically placed next to the new arena so I hope some commercial development will take place.
The area delimited by the green line is completely owned by the city and is called Expo City, which is a cluster of exposition halls, smaller spectacle venues, etc. Here's a good picture of the area. On the center left, you can see the main exposition hall which was recently expanded. It now boasts 250000 SF of exposition space. On the upper right, you can observed the old Arena, originally built in 1949 and housing 10000 seats at the time. The other buildings have multiple uses: administration, small exposition and music show venues, etc.
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