Saskatoon’s Governance and Priorities Committee has agreed on a layout option for the City’s future convention centre within the Downtown Event and Entertainment District. However, it still needs to be approved at City Council.

Administration had previously recommended two options for building the future district. Option 4a consisted of building new convention centre to the west of the theatre across Auditorium Avenue, utilizing the YMCA property. Option 4b was a renovation of the existing convention centre and a smaller expansion to the west of the theatre across Auditorium Avenue, also utilizing the YMCA property. Both of these options include closing Auditorium Avenue and tearing down the YMCA.

The committee voted unanimously to select option 4b, and also agreed to purchase the YMCA property for $8.5 million. Both choices will still need to go before City Council, however Mayor Charlie Clark applauded the latter decision. “With this agreement, I’ve locked in a price tag for today that will secure a plan for the future, that this is an important parcel for our ability to expand TCU place, whether the DEED moves forward or not.”

City Director of Technical Services, Dan Willems, says expanding to the west is of utmost importance for the future of the convention centre. “We looked at going every direction, and really, west is really the only viable option. whether we were to build the convention centre expansion in five years, 10 years, 20 years or 40 years, this would be a piece of property that would be needed to accommodate it.”

More details about the features of the future arena were discussed, as well. There will be a seating bowl with an increase of seats closer to stage right and stage left, not just at center ice. The arena will have a starting number of 15,900 seats, with the ability to expand to 18,000 seats.