[Keith P.]

I spent some time plowing through the report today. Make no mistake, this is a total reconstruction, not a restoration. While the south and part of the west walls of the Forum are supposed to look pretty much the same as they were when originally built, they will be totally reconstructed with mostly new materials. Inside, the support posts go away (yaaay!) but the entire seating bowl is to be demolished and replaced. The reason for the demolition is a combination of poor condition of the existing structures and in terms of the seating areas and concourses, failure to meet current building codes, particularly those related to access and emergency evacuation. This results in a downgrade in seating capacity in the Forum itself from what used to be 5000 seated occupants and 2000 standees (for concerts, etc) to 2900 seats and an unknown number of standees.

Where the proposal seems to go off track is with the rest of the facilities. A new "practice arena" (let's call it the Civic) replaces the existing one built not that long ago but deemed to be not in the greatest of condition due to low-tender choices at the time. This has just 220 seats. The existing exhibition spaces and bingo hall go away as well for similar reasons, but are replaced with a new structure of only 7500 sq ft which seems absurdly small. By eliminating the revenue stream from bingo and other events as a result, the Forum commission projects an annual loss in profitability of $270,000.

The proposal also goes off to cloud-cukkoo-land by reducing parking from about 500 spaces to 350, and calling for an outdoor amphitheater (essentially terraced green space) on the site of the existing bingo hall adjacent to the Canada Post site. It also makes most of the existing surface parking lot off Almon St into green space, with the requisite images of people having picnics on blankets spread on the new grassy area. The Forum Commission has expressed its desire for more exhibition/multipurpose space but that can only be decided by Council apparently.

My initial take is that this is another staff grease job to some extent, overriding what those who are responsible for running the site originally asked for, and pandering to the usual HRM desires to have green space in every development while making life as difficult as possible for those who drive a vehicle. This is also further advanced by a comment in the report I found curious, namely that the frontage on Young St proposed for a 2-level undersized parking garage could be redeveloped (presumably sold) for other uses similar to those either recently built or proposed for the Young/Windsor area, presumably high-rise residential. That just sort of crept in to the report and is not a major focus but should be of concern to those responsible for the Forum site.

So using the poor condition of the existing buildings and the need to bring everything up to code as rationale, we end up with an approximate $75-85 million project. I would be less unhappy if the end result proposed was better - more seating at the Forum itself, more seating at the Civic, more exhibition space, and more parking. As it sits though, I think what is proposed is far too expensive for what is to be delivered.

ETA: I forgot to mention that in the front end of the report there are some excellent albeit small photos of the area from decades ago, along with an interesting heritage assessment report from about 15 years ago that gives some additional background on the history of the place.