Calgary Flames New Arena Update

[ExtraSlow]

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Isn't Calgary in some sort of financial fiasco right now? I thought they jacked business taxes up like 400% since 2015 or something just to keep the lights on.

Yes, and they have been cutting services while jacking taxes too. It's a complete financial mess at City Hall. Good time to close the deal on an arena.

[kertejud2]

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Anyways, funny to see how ppl all of a sudden think it’s a great deal now when they were so anti flames when they walked away. The deals aren’t that much different with the city actually contributing a little bit more than the Flames proposal. I’d have to spreadsheet it when I have time to see what the true differences are.

Main differences are that CSEC is putting up a lot more cash to make the 50/50 split, and the ticket tax being city revenue effectively acts as rent. So it's a bridge between the two proposals where the ticket tax was independent of the rent/property tax the city would have wanted, and the Flames saw their cash contribution to construction as rent. The city getting a share of naming rights would be new because the city's original proposal wouldn't have had them owning the arena thus not entitled to any rights. But that's a pretty insignificant amount, but still an example of actual tangible revenue that wasn't in the cards before (rather than the speculated tax revenue from the surrounding area).

In the end the city is paying ~$120M more than their proposal (but $100M less than CSEC's) and CSEC is paying $175M more than their proposal (but at least $95M less than the city's, as the property taxes would have presumably been open ended beyond recouping construction costs).

A fair compromise from a strict negotiation point of view. A significantly better deal than Edmonton, so that's something. Still doesn't make arena deals in general anything other than rotten pieces of business.

[cycosis]

Anyone else notice how the demolition of the saddle dome magically became half the original forecasted amount?

[rage2]

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Anyone else notice how the demolition of the saddle dome magically became half the original forecasted amount?

I mentioned that in my post. Also, land costs dropped from $30m to $3m.

Spreadsheet magic haha.

[killramos]

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Yes, and they have been cutting services while jacking taxes too. It's a complete financial mess at City Hall. Good time to close the deal on an arena.

I heard the big cuts at city hall they were supposed to happen this week got kicked down the road as well so as to not muddy the optics of the Arena announcement

[Brent.ff]

I love that they don’t talk about the $150 million in other indirect costs (17 ave extension, etc) either.

[kertejud2]

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I love that they don’t talk about the $150 million in other indirect costs (17 ave extension, etc) either.

That was the city trying to inflate the indirect costs for their negotiating position. The 17th Ave extension was happening regardless of the arena deal and is independently funded from it. Similar to any Green Line stops.

[M.alex]

Just think of all the extra money you could spend on a stadium if they stopped paying for useless stuff like police and fire

[ExtraSlow]

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Just think of all the extra money you could spend on a stadium if they stopped paying for useless stuff like police and fire

Exactly, you have to save money in the places you spend the most money.

[tcon]

Corruption 101, folks

[Kavy]

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Just think of all the extra money you could spend on a stadium if they stopped paying for useless stuff like police and fire

Imagine if both those costs came from the same budget and money pool....... because they do not.

[suntan]

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Imagine if both those costs came from the same budget and money pool....... because they do not.

Well actually they do, but only the most naive of people (mostly Redditors and people that post on CalgaryPuck) think that they don't.

[killramos]

If only the way the budgets are broken up could be decided by the same people approving the area deal.

Oh wait.

[Disoblige]

Just don't demo the Saddledome. It'll be the new Alpha center.

[Kavy]

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Well actually they do, but only the most naive of people (mostly Redditors and people that post on CalgaryPuck) think that they don't.

Well then my Aldermen is an idiot because his response to my question about that exact topic was that the operating and capital budgets are separate and funds cannot be transferred from one to the other. Obviously we elected a naive CalgaryPuck poster that knows less then the average beyonder. I will make sure to email him back and tell him that he is misinformed about his job.

[killramos]

Considering we haven’t had Aldermen in almost 10 years. Yea I would say he was an idiot.

Either that or a Liar. Reality lies somewhere in between I’m sure.

[Kavy]

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Considering we haven’t had Aldermen in almost 10 years. Yea I would say he was an idiot.

Either that or a Liar. Reality lies somewhere in between I’m sure.

I’m old and always called them that. When did it change to councillors? I honestly have no clue I’m not being facetious.

[killramos]

2010

[kertejud2]

There are some capital budget sources that are restricted from being used in operations (like higher level government grants for example, the Peace bridge was funded with such a source, or the MSI that was used for the library) and are heavily regulated on their use. Similarly something like a CRL has a location restriction on where it can be used.

It doesn’t seem like the arena deal is coming from a restricted source, but instead a ‘rainy day’ capital fund that might have an unenforceable restriction but nothing council couldn’t just overturn if they wanted since it would be council that applied it in the first place. But I can’t see a council, sensible or otherwise, wanting to set the precedent of cannibalizing capital reserve funds to be used for operating deficits. The whole point of setting them up was to try and protect long term capital projects from being affected by operational mismanagement of future councils.

[D'z Nutz]

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I’m old and always called them that. When did it change to councillors? I honestly have no clue I’m not being facetious.

I was calling them Aldermen up until last week and realized I hadn't heard the term used in a very long time. I didn't realize they actively made the change either. I figured "councilor" was just a generic term.