September 24, 2009

Arena operator: Open your wallets, Edmonton

The chair of Northlands, the volunteer non-profit that operates Edmonton's sporting venues — yes, Canada really is a different country — tells the Edmonton Journal that any new arena for the Oilers would require public money to get built:

"When it starts to get in excess of $400 million, there will have to be in some form or fashion public support likely from two orders or more of government to get this accomplished," [Northlands chair Andrew] Huntley says....

"The reality is that the last large number that have been built took some level of public support, and as I get into the numbers here, I think it's going to take some measure of public support to see a development of this magnitude occur."

The main expected piece of the public funding puzzle is a "community revitalization levy," which as discussed here previously is a newfangled word for tax-increment financing, where any new taxes generated on a property are kicked back to the developer. Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel has said he'd back a CRL, but that in that case, the city should have a "big time say" over the project.