Shannon Park

[someone123]

Choosing a location that's more convenient for the 15-20% at the expense of most of the rest seems like a very strange strategy.

Locals are going to be the bread and butter of a team in Halifax when it comes to ticket sales. Even in Regina, a smaller city with a larger city a couple hours away, the vast majority of tickets sold go to locals.

The rest of the region may be more important when it comes to TV viewers, buying merchandise, etc.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by someone123

Choosing a location that's more convenient for the 15-20% at the expense of most of the rest seems like a very strange strategy.

Locals are going to be the bread and butter of a team in Halifax when it comes to ticket sales. Even in Regina, a smaller city with a larger city a couple hours away, the vast majority of tickets sold go to locals.

The rest of the region may be more important when it comes to TV viewers, buying merchandise, etc.

Only a small proportion of locals live in walking distance of Shannon Park though. DC is easily connected to pretty much all of HRM by highways, in addition to being well-connected to the rest of Atlantic Canada. There is a reason they built a major shopping centre there. It also won't be very hard to run good transit there to support stadium events.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Only a small proportion of locals live in walking distance of Shannon Park though. DC is easily connected to pretty much all of HRM by highways, in addition to being well-connected to the rest of Atlantic Canada. There is a reason they built a major shopping centre there. It also won't be very hard to run good transit there to support stadium events.

Nobody is going to want to go to sporting events if they have to sit on a bus that takes a half hour or more to get there. Similar things can be said for driving. We have this issue in Kanata here for Senators games and are wisely building a new arena Downtown as a result twenty years later. The automotive ease of access had the exact opposite desired effect that a stadium at Dartmouth Crossing would eventually have. You'll alienate most people who have to travel to it whilst bothering locals in the area who have to deal with even higher amounts of traffic in their area. The hassle and time spent reaching the stadium isn't worth the actual event you'll be attending, even if there's only 8/10 CFL games a year. This would count towards any event, whether sporting or concert, at the stadium.

For stadiums you really, really, really, really want foot traffic, or people who can be there on public transport in under 15 minutes. That's the difference between Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata and Lansdowne in Ottawa. So many locals can get to Lansdowne so easily that it makes it the premiere spot for events like the Brier and for outdoor events like the Women's World Cup. Having a stadium in your downtown creates lots of buzz, lots of word of mouth that a stadium in the outskirts just simply wouldn't generate. I just spent a week in New York and went to both an MLS and an MLB game at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx and even that was a half hour subway ride out of Manhattan (Midtown). That stadium is constrained by a lot of property issues in Manhattan but that is an example of an urban stadium and even that trip was tiresome.

Shannon Park isn't much of a better option, IMO, but it's much better than building it in extreme suburban Dartmouth Crossing.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Shannon Park isn't much of a better option, IMO, but it's much better than building it in extreme suburban Dartmouth Crossing.

DC is far better connected via infrastructure than Shannon Park, which is a lousy location for moving thousands of people in and out. DC has the infrastructure in place already. Shannon would require hundreds of millions of dollars worth of interchange/overpass/highway construction.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

DC is far better connected via infrastructure than Shannon Park, which is a lousy location for moving thousands of people in and out. DC has the infrastructure in place already. Shannon would require hundreds of millions of dollars worth of interchange/overpass/highway construction.

Which is why i'm not exactly a huge fan of Shannon Park, either. I'd rather something on the peninsula or adjacent to.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Which is why i'm not exactly a huge fan of Shannon Park, either. I'd rather something on the peninsula or adjacent to.

I certainly would too, but there is a limited amount of area that could be conceivably built into a proper sized stadium and give the desired ease of access in and out.

[IanWatson]

Originally Posted by JHikka

We have this issue in Kanata here for Senators games...

...extreme suburban Dartmouth Crossing.

I once dated a girl who lived in Stittsville and am well aware of the problems with the Canadian Tire Centre. However, it's not really analogous to the Halifax situation.

Kanata is a 30km drive from downtown Ottawa, while DC is a 10km drive from downtown Halifax. DC is not extreme suburban.

The Ottawa/Kanata situation would be more analogous to putting the stadium in Enfield.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Nobody is going to want to go to sporting events if they have to sit on a bus that takes a half hour or more to get there. Similar things can be said for driving.

See my previous post on driving times. DC is really not as far out as it seems, plus it is on the boundary of a major industrial/business park which means that it has robust infrastructure for moving lots of traffic around during the day. During nights and weekends, when most events would occur, is when business traffic is at its lowest - therefore allowing lots of traffic capacity to and from the events.

[FuzzyWuz]

Noticed that demo is ongoing now. From the bridge you can see that a bunch of PMQs are now gone.

[OldDartmouthMark]

This was in the news a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...tion-1.3967938

The demolition of former military housing on the Shannon Park lands in Dartmouth is now expected to be completed by July.

Canada Lands is preparing the sprawling property for a major redevelopment.

In 2016, when asbestos removal work began from inside the 32 buildings, officials thought the demolition would be completed by the end of December.

"This work took longer than estimated, which isn't unusual for a project of this nature and scale," said Chris Millier, the director of real estate for Canada Lands, in an email to CBC News.