New Argo Stadium

What Toronto really needs is a stadium that serves as a Canadian football centre of excellence. It should be the home of the Argos and any Toronto area university teams, plus high school football (game of the week, city/regional championships???). The field should be used 50-75 times a season, not just 10 times for the Argos. All parties with a vested interested in Canadian football gotta come to the table. Budget around $250 million.

This stadium should be 35,000 seats but scaled to be expanded to 75,0000 seats. You can't see it now, but there may come a time when the CFL draws crowds like that. It should be downtown, well connected to transit routes.

Leave BMO as a similar centre of excellence for soccer.

I don't live in Toronto, so I don't have any of the local biases. Don't come up with all the reasons why it can't work. Get 'er done.

Lessons learned:
Winnipeg: great building, shared with university Bisons, terrible location.
Minneapolis: builds 60,000 seat university stadium a few years ago, now building $1B NFL stadium. Stupid when you think about it.
New York: great building, shared with two teams. Very smart.

[b]siders_ruck wrote: Leave BMO as a similar centre of excellence for soccer.[/b]
BMO Field is a centre of excellence for soccer?

somebody needs to inform CEO Leiweke of this, as he publicly stated BMO is subpar and needs extensive upgrades.

I like this idea. Starting sending emails...

As with Ontario university teams keep in mind they don’t avg big crwods like in the States or even out west were talking about avg of 3000-6000 and you would have a real hard talking University teams to move into a big stadium where they would have to pay a fair amount to lease the stadiuma and not make much where on campus stadiums the schools keep 100% of all money.

Now as for high school teams were talking about less then a 1000 fans for them to play out a big stadium every game it would cost to much for most teams sure people might say then offer the rental free issue with that idea would be the stadium would keep most if not all money made which would mean this would not appeal to many if any teams.

Issue is it makes very little sense for high school and university teams.

Sounds great!!

Get your cheque book out!

Or are you just spending from some one else’s wallet?

Yes, lol and he’s talking about “ideally a 35,000 seat stadium that can be expanded to 75,000” !!!
Yes…“geter done” just find some stupid billionaire that wants to spend $500 Million on a new stadium for a team that plays only 9 games a year and averages 21,000 in attendance. Makes a lot of sense.

Just try to find enough good real estate in downtown Toronto that is better suited for a football stadium instead of office towers and high-rise condos. Just like in New York City, they are not going to waste valuable real estate on a football stadium. Stick it out on the GO line in Mississauga or some place reasonable.

The Giants don't play in the state of NY but last time I checked are doing ok for attendance. Vaughan will work just fine thank you. Toronto is a bit like NY, football stadiums and downtown don't jive.

Mississauga for a combined Ticats/Argo stadium would have worked but Hamilton was afraid of losing the Cats therefore ponied up some $40 mill from their Future Fund as they call it. Bob Young would have been stupid to say no to that, of course.

The Giants have triple the season ticket holders per game , then the argo’s have total attendance per game. Also the Giants are a main draw in NY ,the Argo’s are not close to the hottest ticket in town. I think the Argo’s would draw well the first year in a new stadium , but after the first year, they would come back to 20 k average . I hope they can find the right fit and stabilize this franchise.

kasps, what are you saying? The only way to stabilize the franchise with any hope is with a new stadium and away from the 80 or so games a year in downtown Toronto Blue Jays that play in the same season. That is in the suburbs and finally Braley and the CFL have that figured out, took them long enough but did get it figured out.

The 100th Grey Cup win with the Skydump as the stadium, still being 2nd class citizens to the main tenant the Jays, wasn't going to pull it off. Rogers is about branding with their sports team, Argos don't provide branding and Rogers is mainly about cell phones, wireless etc. They can't do a stadium thing, they are up to their ears trying to keep the Jays relevant to the Yanks, Bosox etc. Costing them but they are trying in a doughnut stadium, will give them credit and I'm not even a BJ fan. I'll give Braley and the CFL credit as well for telling Rogers put your grass in for the Jays, we are outta here! Because winning the 100th GC in your own city, if that don't work to get season ticket sales up, nothing will. Good on the CFL for finally realizing that and the beauty is, it's not too late!

And if Braley can't get a stadium deal done in the GTA, then Argos are toast, as the way Darwin would have said it should be so. But I think he can with the help of friends and the CFL and all of Canada who is interested a bit in the history of the Argos and Grey Cup. Exciting times!

Are you seriously kidding here Earl?

Hammer, why did Hamilton pony up $40 mill for a new stadium when what I've read on the Raise the Hammer site that is all the chick cool new Hamiltonians from GTA in many cases (ok, that should be in quotes :wink: ) say is a league on the down and out (gotta love some of those posters at RTH with their knowledge of "everything" :wink: )?

Why? Are you seriously suggesting BY should have said no to $40 mill? :o

Enlighten me, I'm all ears...

No Earl, the exact opposite. No other municipality wanted to pony up ANY money. Oshawa, Milton, Burlington, they all said the same thing. We’d be happy to have them here, but don’t expect money out of our coffers.

Bob Young has kept this team alive, but dropping $40 million of his own money, on a franchise that hasn’t made him a dime, to rellocate it to peel, where the local university has outright refused the Argos playing there and to a location where you would have the spend a large amount of money, just to build a new fanbase and throw decades of history to the wind. It’s just not going to happen.

Hamilton, from day one had the money put aside for the new stadium. Even the RTHers were fine with that, so long as it was built at the West Harbour (which it wasn’t) and immeidately screamed blood murder and to this day, try to salt the earth and slander the Ti-Cats at every oppourtunity when it didn’t happen. No other location in Southern Ontario wanted to commit to the Ti-Cats as much as Hamilton.

I think Argo support is questionable in any location and it’s going to be a tough sell.

But BY didn't ask Hamilton to pony up this money. All he said is for the Ticats future success, a new stadium is needed. That's all. Bob was willing to do what David is trying to do. Bob didn't ask Fred for $40 mill. Fred said here's $40 mill. Ok then, maybe I'll try and work something in Hamilton.

Remember, Ottawa in S Ontario is the gold standard really of how to do this. Smart folk there in Ottawa. DB knows this model. BY was going to do this model in Aldershot or near abouts but $40 mill is $40 mill.

Hamilton city got what it wanted more or less, the $40 mill is being spent on lands close to downtown. End of story.

If it’s going to be that tough of a sell, why doesn’t DB just fold the tent now? Surely kasps he knows a thing or two more about all of this than we do, me thinks. :? Or else he really is just plain stupid? :?

The Ottawa project is smart but its not cheap your looking at just under $500 million and for many owners and citys that might be just to much.

No question, there is some well heeled people involved in Ottawa, for sure as part of that whole development. And well connected. Ottawa for that type of deal makes more sense than Hamilton as Hamilton simply has too many down and out and industrial areas to look appealing to developers on that kind of scale. IMHO. I love Hamilton, I live here but have also lived in Ottawa. Hamilton has many more acres of industrial and low class areas.

Anyways, I still think a full demo and rebuild of Lamport Stadium is the best option.

There’s a solid amount of surface parking in the area, and an ample amount within walking distance at the Ex. and it’s GO station for out of towners comming in from Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville and Brampton, it’s serviced by the TTC along King St, a GO platform for games days could easily go up at Dufferin and Queen for the Milton, Missisauga area, it’s far enough back enough from the lake and sheltered by the Gardiner to stop those bitter cold winter winds, there’s shops along Jefferson St that would benefit and the precient is already zoned for a stadium, so you aren’t going to run into any surprises when you start digging.

The only downside I’ve seen is that the parcel is a bit small, but not unworkably so. Fraser to Jefferson is 210M as is from King St W to Liberty. Compare that to Tim Horton’s Field where Melrose to Balsam is 220M and Beechwood to Cannon is 230M. Given that THF is expandable to 40,000, that should still leave the Argos a small amount of room to expand, but even that’s not a big concern, as the Argos still could use the Rogers Centre for Grey Cups and Playoff games, like Montreal does with the Big O.