The aftermath of the consultant’s report commissioned by the City of Saskatoon about the state of SaskTel Centre and TCU Place begs some questions. The report suggests both venues are past their “best before” dates and recommends a new arena be built downtown with a convention centre combined with it or connected to it. I like the idea myself. We’re told SaskTel Centre is heading to a tipping point where the major concerts and shows will start bypassing Saskatoon because the arena is incapable of handling them and we’re told that TCU place is already starting to lose some convention bids due to lack of capacity. If we decide to build a new arena and convention centre downtown, it will likely cost close to $400 million, not including land costs. Does the city borrow this money and go deep into debt? Are we willing to have our property taxes increased? Are downtown businesses willing to see their taxes increased? It isn’t clear to me how we pay for it. My other question has to do with time. After finding a location, acquiring the land, designing the facilities and building them, at a guess it would be between 10- to 15 years before they opened for business. What do we do during the 2020’s if we’re already starting to lose some conventions? At what point do major music artists and shows start bypassing SaskTel Centre? If we’re past our best before date now, won’t the tipping point happen before we can build something new, even if we started right away, which we can’t and won’t? This is a conundrum.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.
Arena/Convention Centre downtown? May be good idea but…
By Syndicated Author
Apr 3, 2018 | 8:00 AM
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