Fantastic letter @kcantor. I agree with everything you said. I am going to follow up with my own note to Mayor/Council and would love to see as many like minded Edmontonians do the same. We need to take a another long, hard, honest look at this before even one dollar is spent on demolition.
 
I'm wondering if the province has the same concerns, hence why there's been no funding for this demolition.
But then again this is the United Calgary Party....
 
kcantor said:
Mayor and Councillors,

It was interesting to see the concerns now being expressed regarding the direction and achievability for Exhibition Lands given many of us in the industry have had similar concerns for a long time.

It is also worth noting that some of those concerns come from some of the directions and restrictions given by Council (with or without direction and support from administration).

One of the biggest concerns when the City was looking for “big ideas” from the private sector was the outright refusal to consider any repurposing the Coliseum. I could never understand a direction to spend millions and millions of dollars demolishing the Coliseum to create yet another/larger vacant parcel of land – as if the City doesn’t already have enough vacant land – instead of using to create an anchor activity centre that would nurture and support adjacent development.

The Coliseum encloses more than 400,000 sf of space, much of which is high-ceiling and clear span. It doesn’t need to be repurposed for athletic activities. Per the attached, it could be connected to Expo Hall to offer up to 1 million square feet of convention space, making it one of the top half dozen on the continent. This could be done while sensitively providing outdoor space for K-days and other outdoor festivals and exterior show space for exhibitors for everything from farm implements to construction equipment.

The Coliseum has the potential – as does the location – to be a major sound stage and recording facility for the film and television and recording industry.

It has the potential to be converted to various forms of housing and retail uses.

Many of these alternatives offer partnership opportunities with other levels of government, with educational institutions and with the private sector.

If administration is going to be tasked with a new report that is more sensitive to market conditions, Council should also be tasked with revisiting some of the restrictions that were needlessly imposed on administration that will end up costing the City millions of dollars in initial capital expense and millions more in foregone property tax revenue.

Regards,

Ken
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Glad this was sent. I know some councillors are pretty good at responding. Would be interested to hear what kind of responses you get.
 
^ I have sent a number of things to the Mayor and various Councilors over the last 6 months or so and....nothing. Not one response to any of my comments/questions.
 
As much as I didn't think hockey really needed to come downtown in the first place (and I'm seeing that after the fact that there were a few advantages to that) and had concerns as to what would happen to Northlands if it was done (that particular bridge is burned), I'm looking forward to this. It is an ideal location for a TOD, and all of the Northlands stuff was a big part of why the area was such a hole to begin with.
 
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The way we continue to refuse to recognize the cultural and social and planning significance of retaining/repurposing existing structures is nothing short of shameful.
 
kcantor said:
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The way we continue to refuse to recognize the cultural and social and planning significance of retaining/repurposing existing structures is nothing short of shameful.
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I'm still on board if there was ever a possibility to resurrect repurposing Coliseum. It would also create another valuable stop/location along the existing Lrt line while fulfilling some kind of purpose.

I wonder if there was enough public support on the idea of repurposing. Did people get behind the idea enough which might have had some impact on city retaining this?
 
The city’s process and terms for their RFP pretty much guaranteed they would not receive the high quality submissions that were warranted. Much like the Province’s handling of the old Remand Centre and the old RAM, the handling of the files pretty much guarantees the outcome supporting the predetermined desire to demolish.
 
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