Tim Hortons Field | 40m | ? | Complete

[realcity]

Im just saying I wish Confed was the other option instead of Airport.

Naive perhaps because I can't comment on Ward 2s nimbys.

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by realcity

Whatever, Bratina voted blah blah... I don't know what vote you're referring to? It was never given a chance, Collins had it removed as a possible site long ago. What's important was Bratina's last relevant comment on the issue was that article. I'm totally off the mark, until Bratina says exactly what I've been saying, and all the Bratina-super-fans shut up.

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Council voted overwhelmingly to ditch Confederation Park as one of four possible stadium sites over a year ago.

Only Ferguson supported Confederation Park. At the same day Bratina voted against supporting the Pan Am bid.

[realcity]

That's what I'm saying, it never got a chance to be a possible site. Now Bratina and some business leaders are asking that it be back on the list of possibles or at a minimum debated and explored. They gave no real reason why Confed was off the list right from the very start. Other than Collins' NIMBYs.

[realcity]

"Councillor Terry Whitehead on the other hand, is among those looking to revisit this week's decision to eliminate the location from the stadium siting process.

He insists that city council has a responsibility to be well informed, by doing its "due diligence", before making such a decision.

David Braley, the Pan-Am bid's original architect, has called the city's decision "shocking and shortsighted".

He says the Confederation Park location is a gateway, with the best chance to generate long-term revenue to the cover operating costs of the facility."

[realcity]

"It was a classic Hamilton city council moment.

Classic in the sense of vintage, notable, enduring.

But not in a good way.

Classic in a close-minded, parochial, don't-bother-me-with-the-facts way.

Councillors had just heard a presentation from tourism director David Adames on Hamilton's wish-list for facilities in the event the Toronto-area bid wins the 2015 Pan American Games.

The centrepiece is a new $150-million, 27,000-seat stadium, whose ultimate legacy would be replacing the aged Ivor Wynne Stadium.

All Adames was looking for from council was approval to fully evaluate four potential sites for the stadium:

The west harbourfront;

Confederation Park;

Downtown;

The airport lands.

But before the discussion could even warm up, Ward 5 Councillor Chad Collins moved to delete Confederation Park from the list.

Collins argued Confederation Park is a non-starter because he doesn't want to see important green space paved over with a municipal project."

[realcity]

"But there are advantages: Access, room for parking without disrupting a residential neighbourhood, a lakefront view, a gateway attraction on the city's under-appreciated east-side approach, and the significant savings by utilizing vacant city-owned land. The stadium and parking would take about eight hectares out of the park's 83.

Also, Confederation Park is hardly natural green space. It is home now to Wild Waterworks water park (and its large parking lot), camping, mini-golf, batting cages, an arcade and other attractions.

But those are all factors that could have come into play into a serious public and council discussion. Instead, a matter involving tens of millions of local taxpayers dollars was short-circuited. Slamming the door shut without even looking through it was irresponsible."

[realcity]

Braley owns two football teams I think he knows what he's talking about. Foxcroft part owns the Bulldogs and has been involved in pro sports his whole life. I think he knows a bit about it too. I would take their opinion over Collins'. Collins' decision was political. Adames is stunned as well. Peter George is in disbelief. And now some councilors are wondering themselves why Confed Park wasn't even debated or at least given a chance to be explored. This includes Bratina.

[realcity]

"I suppose that makes remediation kind of like searching for whose hands are on the levers behind the curtain: You never know what you'll find until you look." -- Foxcroft

[SteelTown]

It's not my job to copy and paste all articles here. Others do a great job of that.

You've probably posted a piece of that one article probably three times already. I'll post the other piece from that same article....

Meantime, support for the west harbour site was bolstered by the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario.

Its business manager, Hamiltonian Patrick Dillon, said in a letter to city council that "cleaning up this brownfield site to create a world-class, multi-purpose facility is the responsible environmental solution for this part of the city, creating 1,750 green jobs."

The west harbour site was selected for that reason and as a city-building project that would connect downtown to the waterfront.

That goal has a general parallel with the jewel of the Vancouver Olympics, the $170-million Richmond Oval.

It, too, was a brownfield site and seen as a key link between downtown Richmond and the Fraser River waterfront.

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Take a look at the Richmond Olympic Oval. The same architect, from Cannon Design, that will design Hamilton's Pan American stadium. It also required remediation and is currently the pride of the City.

Site of the oval in Richmond - October 2006


January 2006


March 2006


July 2006


July 2006


August 2006


Took them a year to cleanup the site.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=138476

In the last four years of Bratina's term I've been greatly disappointed with his performance. He voted against the Confederation Park option, pushed for Sir John A McDonald (almost sounded as if he advocated for the closure the only High School in downtown Hamilton), when that didn't happen he voted against the entire Pan Am bid. Now he wants a clean up of downtown Hamilton by 2015 even though he doesn't support the Games. He skipped when it was time to vote for LIUNA and buddies proposal for mixed income Connaught, real fishy move for me. Supported Gord Moodie the entire time even though he faced allegation of corruption, which now he got fired from his job and in court for municipal corruption and breach of public trust.

[scott000]

Ok, here's my take on the west harbour (WH) vs. confed. park (CP) situation, feel free to comment/criticize:

Basically, WH is about potential. Despite not being directly downtown, the site provides the most potential to provide a link to downtown and the bayfront and offers the greatest opportunity to aid in the re-shaping of the City of Hamilton by drawing more attention and people towards these areas.

CP is about status quo business sense. The CP location is essentially a suburban location; it follows everything that business people like about suburban business parks along service roads (easy access, parking, great visual exposure, etc.) which make it a more profitable location under current conditions.

Is the CP location more economically responsible? Absolutely, less/no land costs, greater profit potential for the Ti-Cats,... but in city planning, other factors besides money should be considered. And thus the City is attempting to utilize the stadium as a catalyst for change. Whether or not WH will have any beneficial impact to downtown/ Bayfront is absolutely debatable, but you can be certain that CP will do zero for the benefit of downtown.

Another thing to consider is that the CP land is prime land due to its location; therefore the stadium is not needed to bring spin-off investment to the area. Whereas, nothing will happen on the WH land forever due to its present undesirability.

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Oops it's Manchester not Melbourne





Taking away the track and field added about 5,000 seats.

Eastlands is indeed a study in flexible ambition. It was originally pitched in the early 90s as an 80,000-seat Olympic stadium, then again as a 60,000-seat venue for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. It was eventually built with a capacity of 38,000 for the Commonwealth Games, increasing to almost 48,000 when Manchester City came in for their 2003-04 season. (The team signed a 250-year lease.) Eastlands can hold around 60,000 for concerts by annexing the field. Construction cost was around £110 million (approx $202m in 2002 CAD), £33 million (approx $61m in 2002 CAD) of which came from the city.

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Eastlands is indeed a study in flexible ambition. It was originally pitched in the early 90s as an 80,000-seat Olympic stadium, then again as a 60,000-seat venue for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. It was eventually built with a capacity of 38,000 for the Commonwealth Games, increasing to almost 48,000 when Manchester City came in for their 2003-04 season. (The team signed a 250-year lease.) Eastlands can hold around 60,000 for concerts by annexing the field. Construction cost was around £110 million (approx $202m in 2002 CAD), £33 million (approx $61m in 2002 CAD) of which came from the city.

Original stadium cost was £110 mil, the increased capacity cost another £30 mil. Eastlands is well removed from downtown Manchester, is not serviced by its transit system (well there is a station that's a 20 minute walk from the stadium), it is located at the intersection of two highways, and has 10,000 parking spaces on and around the site..

[thistleclub]

My understanding, and I may be mistaken, is that upper levels of government (ie. Sport England) kicked in 2/3 of project cost, the city the remaining third and that the team was on the hook for the expansion costs. Which, using your numbers, would be about what Hamilton is asking of the Ticats and their corporate partners.

On top of that, Man City FC owner HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is also behind a £1 billion ($1.5b CAD) leisure project and stadium expansion on the adjacent lands -- including a proposed five-star hotel, luxury commercial office space, high-end retail and leisure facilities and a £50m ($77m CAD) training complex for the team. (Along the way, they'll possibly end up remediating a 17-acre former coal pit.)

Scale and budgets aside, imagine these words coming from the Ticats' camp: "The longer term considerations for the area reflect the long term commitment of our owners to the club and the community it serves."

[markbarbera]

The level of finincial contribution a sport franchise owner makes is directly related to the size of market and value of the franchise itself. Expecting Young (or any CFL franchise owner for that matter) to come close to matching the kind of financial committment a Premier League franchise owner could make is simply not realistic given the amount of resources available to the average Premier league franchise owner compared to a CFL franchise owner.

That being said, Young's committment to Hamilton and the Ticats has been demonstrated unequivocally through his actions since he took ownership, and actions always speak louder than words.

Are you suggesting we follow Manchester's example and invest in 'community' by building a stadium outside of downtown, next to a major highway interchange and provide parking for 10,000?

[SteelTown]

Tried a bunch of ways but Ivor Wynne shouldn't fit at Kay Drage. You would have to relocate the CP track and knock down some homes. Of course we'd have to include space for a new interchange from 403.

[thistleclub]

@markbarbera

Not expecting EPL-scale financial commitment from the Ticats. The Premier League is a much bigger and more stable business than the CFL, and Man City plays twice as many home games. I would say that in the absence of a huge financial commitment to the new stadium, it would have been been nice to have heard enthusiasm from the team's owners in the run-up to the site selection. What we got was a city-knows-best stance on location and the vague promise of "millions or tens of millions." Young's past commitment to the team is one thing. On the stadium saga he has been little more than a cipher.

Although I have previously weighed Young's trial baloon suggestion of Aldershot as a potential site, I wasn't suggesting that a peripheral stadium is a good thing — though I think Eastlands is as far from central Manchester as Ivor Wynne is from downtown. I believe a downtown stadium is the best option. I was mainly interested in the stadium's relative financing and oscillating seating capacity aspirations. (Apt, I suppose, since like Ivor Wynne and the Pan Am stadium, Eastlands is a product of a Games bid.)

Also getting at the rub of holding up UK stadia as examples. Specifically, that upper government is more of a partner and that the teams are not just un-bankrupt but massively profitable. To say nothing of Manchester being able to enlist an architectural team like Arup.

[markbarbera]

You could fit a stadium at the southern end of the park. No need to relocate tracks - if need be build it out over top of the tracks. Absolutely no homes would need to be removed. But we won't know because for two years council has refused to seriously consider feasible alternatives

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

You could fit a stadium at the southern end of the park. No need to relocate tracks - if need be build it out over top of the tracks. Absolutely no homes would need to be removed. But we won't know because for two years council has refused to seriously consider feasible alternatives

Still wouldn't fit, would be extremely tight and no space for a warm up track and field.

[highwater]

As a commenter on the Spec blog pointed out, construction on this site would impact Cootes Paradise, and there is an RBG owned naturalized area and restored wetland immediately to the east of Kay Drage. From an environmental point of view, I think it's pretty safe to say this site is a non-starter.

[bornagainbiking]

To find a place is important and fairly soon to meet the completion deadline. So how much area is required. The WH area is nice but could be small. The downtown is not viable. The airport is just dumb, another huge area with minimal usage.
There is so much room in the north harbour but so industrial.
Has anyone thought of the area between the HGH (hospital) and Burlington Street and Victoria and Wellington. There is plenty of area along Victoria (abandon bldgs) and plenty of parking at the HGH on evening and weekends (hospital revenue).
This is just as close to the downtown as WH.... And that area could use the lift. North End Wellingtton to Bay
Look at a map. next to the railroad tracks and easy access empty land
Did I mention the harbour and Discovery Centre to park your vehicle.
Lots of the area near here could be parking as it is brown fields now.