Monies are for Stadium with 15,000 Seats Max.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
21

Problem is, how many more years can you squeeze out of IWS by pumping in $40 million worth of renovations? What happens when IWS has structurally deteriorated to the point that it simply must be closed down permanently?

I love the feel of games at IWS, but if there is a window of opportunity to build a new stadium, I think it makes sense to explore the options fully. In particular, it makes sense to me to put at least some public funds into a labour-intensive enterprise such as this during a recession. I agree that sorting out who pays how much is a thorny issue, but if a location with suitable long-term benefit is chosen (I still think the airport location makes the most sense) I think there would probably be a way to make it work.

22

Good post safetyblitz! So what this all comes down to is that Hamilton can get a 27,000 seat brand spankin new stadium for 94 million dollars. This structure could be built in a nicer area (like any of the ones being considered) with good seats, decent washrooms, ample parking, transportation access, state of the art food outlets, a track that could later be removed in favour of additional seats and other amenities that I have likely forgotten about as I write this.

Opportunity is knocking right now. The new stadium would help to pay for itself with many additional events it could host. Corporate sponsorship would come in to play here as well. I feel that our infrastucture doesn't have to suffer financially in the long run, because the overall cost would seem like quite a bargain 10 or 20 years down the road. Our economy is expected to come out of the doldrums starting sometime in mid 2009 to 2010. after this, as inflation gets back into high gear again and costs go skyward, a new stadium would be an unlikely prospect for Hamilton.

The 30 to 40 million dollar cost of IW's upkeep over the next few years will also increase . How high this will go is anybody's guess.

Do it now!

23

This article in today's edition of the Hamilton Spectator reports that the Pan Am bid company has given the City of Hamilton a Feb 9/09 deadline to decide whether it wants to proceed with a new stadium and to choose the building site:

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/502527
24

From 27,000 seats > 10-15,000 seats

From $66 million > $94 million

From 6 weeks to 15 days to DECISION DAY.

What I have learned on this topic is that

the stadium doesn’t have to a big moneymaker
but it must be able to cover it’s operating costs

after the Pan Games have come and gone,

as long as there is a benefit for the bars, restaurants and stores
in the area or neighbourhood from people going to the stadium.

or the City has to be confident that businesses interested in
attracting such customers will open up in the area around the stadium.

the City must ALSO be sure that the location is accessible
for people to make it out to the events held there,

Otherwise, the stadium will be an albatross around the city’s neck.

Here is John Kernaghan’s Coles note version of
the only sites the city will have time to research.

SHORT LIST

These sites remain on the city’s list of sites still under consideration.

  1. * West Harbourfront

Industrial lands at the west end of Barton Street
between North Queen Street and Tiffany Street.

Sports:

For: Dramatic setting for sport spectacle with bay backdrop.

Against: Difficult vehicular access for 27,000 fans.

Games

For:

Satisfies need for track and field centre for Golden Horseshoe,
fulfills transformation mandate in Games mission.

Against:

Distance and accessibility from Toronto,
where athletes village will likely be based.

City

For:

Chance to transform a neighbourhood and
provide a link from waterfront to downtown.

Against:

Expensive to service in terms of roads or new transit
and upgrading of water mains and sanitary sewers.

Long term:

For: Can invigorate an area of the city

and increase recreational sport capacity
as a multi-purpose facility.


It won’t increase recreational sport capacity as
a multi-purpose facility without a pool or velodrome.

Against:

Could be expensive to operate
if not enough revenue streams are developed.

2. * Downtown Hamilton

Vacant or under-developed lands in vicinity of
intersections of York Boulevard and Bay Street

or Rebecca and John streets.


Is there enough land there? Maybe 20 acres
aren’t needed with no velodrome or pool?

but 2nd practice track and field
facilty is still needed.

Sports

For: Central location as a gathering spot for athletes and fans.

Against: Little novelty value in location to pull in fans.

Games

For: Fulfills elite and recreational sport legacy mandate.

Against: Distance for athletes to travel from athletes village.

City

For: Provides economic stimulation, sparks redevelopment.

Against: Could take up space more appropriate for other development.

Long term

For: Becomes home to pro, amateur athletes
and recreational athletes for several generations.

Against: Might be seen as intrusive after glow of Games,
pricey to maintain without multi-use and revenue from parking.

  1. * Airport lands

Undeveloped lands north of John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport.

Sports:

For: Access to airport, access for fans from several directions.

Against: Distance from amateur, recreational users.

Games:

For: Less complicated development than other sites.

Against: Distance from athletes village.

City

For: Would spark infrastructure development to benefit local businesses and airport.

Against: Little symbolic or image factor, would limit other commercial development in area.

Long term

For: Supporting revenue from parking to cover operating costs.

Against: Little value in naming rights, limited recreational use.


I will go out on the limb and guess that the stadium
will likely be located at either of the two downtown sites. :wink:

25

Good read ron. But really, TIME to research? Haven't they had like the past 20 years or so when maybe, just maybe, some people at city hall but have thought hey, IWS won't last forever, let's put a subcommittee together and see what the options are. :roll:

26

Toronto lands bid to build Pan Am aquatics centre

Toronto Star
TORONTO (Jan 28, 2009)
Toronto has won a bid to house a new national sports institute and aquatics centre for the 2015 Pan American Games, beating out Markham for a facility it had eagerly pursued.

The $170-million centre would be built at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus, and would include a swimming facility, multi-sport field house, gymnastic facility and high-performance training centre.

Toronto, which is leading the bid that would include venues across the Golden Horseshoe, is competing against Bogota, Colombia, and Lima, Peru. The 42-member Pan American Sports Organization will choose the winner later this year.

Hamilton is in the running for a new stadium that will host track and field. City council has until Feb. 9 to commit $94 million to the stadium or an additional $56 million in federal-provincial funding will go elsewhere. The new stadium could replace Ivor Wynne as the home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Hamilton might also be in line for some upgrades to Copps Coliseum.

27

Thanks, Earl.

Past city councils are history right now.

The present members of city council are dealing with
matters which affect my beloved Tiger Cats future, TODAY.

as well as the Toronto and Golden Horseshoe Pan Am Games.

And over the last ten days, they have been blind-sided
by three monumental, game-changing announcements

The financing the upper levels of government
will provide has been reduced so that

it will only cover a stadium with 10-15,000 seats
not a 27,000 seat stadium as it would have before

Increasing our costs of the stadium from $66 million > $94 million

Now DECISION DAY is in two weeks.

The six weeks that we had before was bad enough.

The city has to get an accurate estimate of the additional costs
beyond the stadium itself of each location in two weeks now.

For instance, if it is located downtown, the cost of upgrading
water mains and sanitary sewers, the roads or new transit.

City council has a huge task ahead of them.

For the taxpayer's sake, I hope they get it right.

28

Yes, they have been blind-sided with a lot of new information and having to decide quickly, I'll grant you that. But also I think part of running any large city is having some tight deadlines on issues that can be compounded by other factors developing ie. budget x amount of dollars for road improvements and then, wham, a bridge suddenly has a piece of concrete fall off and what do we do next? This sort of thing.

I'm sure a few people and contractors will be working overtime in the next couple of weeks to have some reasonably accurate figures available for analysis. And truthfully, they might get it wrong, that is a possibility.

29

It was reported in today's edition of the Hamilton Spectator that the Pan Am bid company has given the City of Hamilton a two week extension to Feb 23/09 to decide whether it will participate in the stadium project and, if so, to choose a location.

If the Ticat organization really wants a new stadium, they need to step up their campaign within this two week window. First, maybe Bob Young or Scott Mitchell or both could make a presentation to city council or a subcommittee before Feb 23/09 outlining the degree to which Mr. Young and the Ticats intend to participate in the stadium project, financially and/or in other ways. Second, the Ticats could request that the CFL Board of Governors meet within the next two weeks to consider conditionally granting to Hamilton the 2015 Grey Cup if a 24,000 to 27,000 seat stadium (designed to be temporarily expandable to a minimum of 40,000 seats) is built for the Pan Am Games.

By the way, here is a further opinion on the stadium issue from Jason Leach, a youth pastor in Hamilton, from an online newsletter titled "Raise The Hammer" published on Jan 15/09. Although he does not have an official role in the process, he presents some points to consider on the merits of a stadium located in downtown Hamilton:

http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=1192
30

Good suggestions, TCTD, about the Tiger Cats
and the CFL making themselves visible now.

And the points the youth minister made about
the requirements of the site to me are indisputeable.

The site chosen has to have a maximum number
of modes of transportation to the stadium

and, IMO, an established neighbourhood has to
already be in the area surrounding the stadium

for the economic spinoffs to be immediate.

31

Don't know how many of the execs ever cash in their free passes... but the majority of Tiger-Cat fans live within a 5 mile radius of IWS.... and a good percentage walk to the games. You build antying near the airport and you can "kiss" the east end fans off the radar of the future t.c. pop. Would you take 2 buses to get to a game you can watch on TV? I wouldn't. The so called brass has got it all wrong. You want to see a franchise sink faster than the Titanic.... then build out near the airport. As far as near Bay street or the Harbour..... after the first year of dealing with the obvious traffic chaos nodody would attempt to go near that area at game time again. We've already endured the traffic of "aquafest."

32

Given that the original budget for a proposed Pan Am stadium containing 24,000 to 27,000 seats was $150 million before it was pared down to $100 million for a 15,000 seat stadium, it piqued my curiosity as to what type of stadium can currently be built for $150 million. In searching the website of HOK Sport Venue, one of the leading stadium design and construction consulting firms in the world, the closest one I have found so far is Skilled Park, a rugby stadium built in 2008 in Gold Coast (Robina), Australia:

http://www.hoksport.com/projects/skilledpark.html

And according to this article in Sinclair Knight Merz Consulting magazine, the capital cost of the Skilled Park stadium, totalling 27,000 seats, was $168 million but this figure appears to have included $16 million for a transport hub facilitating the use of public transit to and from the venue thus the stadium itself would have cost approximately $152 million. The article rates the stadium highly on value-for-cost and sustainability although, to be fair, the firm who produces the magazine was involved in the project:

[url=http://www.skmconsulting.com/knowledge_insights/Skilled+Park_Article.htm]http://www.skmconsulting.com/knowledge_ ... rticle.htm[/url]

The one problem the particular design of this stadium in applying it to the Hamilton scenario is that there seems to be little if any room to expand the stadium with temporary seating to accommodate a Grey Cup game. Also, it is a given each individual will have his or her own opinion on the visual appeal of the stadium but it does provide an example as to what can be built for the amount in the original Hamilton Pan Am stadium budget.

33

Thanks for your very interesting post, TCTD. I presume most of these facilities were build during inflationary times. Do you suppose that now, while we are in the throes of deflationary times, the price of our facility should be less?

A good read!

34

Very good research, TCTD. Thank you.

I like the fact the stadium is walled in with a semi-roof

I bet it is pleasure for the fans to be outside
but partially protected from the elements

and to be cooled a bit by air blowing through vents
so heat doesn't build up to much inside there

Nick Setta wouldn't have to worry
about strong or swirling winds, either.

35

Heat and humidity buildup would be my biggest concern with this sort of semi-covered design.

I didn’t read the article in detail, but glancing at the pictures of the interior there doesn’t appear to be much visible lateral ventilation to the outside. During muggy stretches in the summer I wonder how comfortable a design like this one would really be…

36

Muggy, talk about Texas Stadium which apparently was like a hot house with that design for so many years. But 64,000 every game.

37

TCTD:

Good information. It all makes sense.
Unfortunately it will be politics that will direct anything to do with a new stadium so common sense and facts will have no part to play in any decision. :frowning:

38

Thanks for your replies, gentlemen.

Heat and humidity is a definite problem for July and August outdoor events in Hamilton. Even the heat and humidity in a totally open Ivor Wynne Stadium is stifling during most summer Ticat games. The article does indicate that fresh air and ventilation grates are incorporated into the Skilled Park stadium design but they are not visible in the photographs of the stadium.

The design of Skilled Park roof is much more open than Texas Stadium, built in 1971 and shown in the photograph in the link below:

[url=http://football.ballparks.com/NFL/DallasCowboys/index.htm]http://football.ballparks.com/NFL/Dalla ... /index.htm[/url]

As mrcats62 stated in his post, we will just have wait to see which direction the local political winds take this issue. The deadline for a decision by the City of Hamilton is exactly three weeks from today.

39

Thanks again, TCTD. I completely agree with your heat and humidity theory in IVor Wynne stadium, particularly since, as fans, we are jammed in there with minimal seat and leg room, particularly for guys over 6 feet in height, which I am.

I thoroughly checked out the Skilled Stadium site you put up and used the occasion to look at ALL the stadia
in the left margin of the page. I was trying to determine whether or not these stadia were built in heavily populated areas. (downtown areas) Based on my interpretation, where photos allowed some visual access, they were not. There were many that I can't even comment on, since there wasn't enough field of view from the aerial shots used.

In many, however, skyscrapers were visible, but well away from the stadia. This tells me that in the research of stadium placement in a given community, the powers that were avoided downtown areas.

My conclusions could be baseless, but these were my observations.

Is this relevant to our situation? I rather think it is.

40

Yes, thanks TCTD. But Hamilton downtown isn't exactly what I would call skyscrapers from block to block to block. Not really a factor in my thinking albeit below the escarpment is a greenhouse effect, well known that on top of the mountain it is usually a bit cooler. And as an entomologist once told me, some bugs can survive the winters below the escarpment compared with on top because of this warmer, greenhouse effect.