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Post by neufeld on Apr 6, 2011 14:30:11 GMT -5
EDMONTON CITY COUNCIL FACES OFF ON OILERS' ARENA PROPOSAL THE CANADIAN PRESS 4/6/2011 12:55:40 PM EDMONTON -- Edmonton city councillors are facing off over a proposal to build a new $450-million arena where the National Hockey League Oilers would play. Council was reviewing five reports Wednesday on the complex proposal that is part of a plan to revitalize the city's downtown. Councillors were also to be privately briefed on how talks with Oilers owner Daryl Katz (KAYTZ) are going before their vote on whether the project should advance to the design stage. Some councillors have misgivings about the plan to replace the existing Rexall Place arena, and it still isn't entirely clear who would pay for the new facility. Katz has pledged $100 million, but city proposals to include an arena ticket tax and impose a special levy on nearby businesses haven't been approved -- and there is a $100-million shortfall regardless. Mayor Stephen Mandel has been warning that not replacing Rexall Place could see the Oilers leaving the city. www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=361083
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Post by iliketherangers on Apr 6, 2011 14:46:32 GMT -5
what will the capacity be?
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rsyl
Veteran Member
Posts: 207
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Post by rsyl on Apr 6, 2011 15:56:48 GMT -5
Edmonton has one advantage over Glendale though, they have a fan base and could potentially fill the arena... although god knows how they could pay off the mortgage on half a billion dollars.
at 5% interest and loan of 450 million they have to pay 2.5million per month (30MM per year) for 30 years.
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Post by shtinky on Apr 6, 2011 16:30:03 GMT -5
Building an almost-free arena for a sports team owner is the first mistake. Then you open yourself up to extortion like Glendale.
I know a lot of people might disagree with me here, but I think we did it the right way here. When prospective owners wanted to the government to pay for the Jets losses and build a new arena, the government told them to bugger off, so they went to AZ and found a huge sucker to take advantage of.
In the meantime, TNSE built an arena with a trivial amount of government money. And now we're set to get our team back.
So supposedly "have not" Manitoba found a way to get it done with private funding, while free enterprise nirvana Alberta is relying on government largesse to build a home for the Oilers. Go figure.
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Post by Guardian on Apr 6, 2011 18:13:56 GMT -5
And the Flames are waiting to see what happens in Edmonton before they try to extort money out of Calgary taxpayers for a new building.
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