Bickering over new Flames arena cost is dead, long live bickering over who’ll pay to fix old Flames arena

Two weeks after the Calgary Flames owners walked away from their $600 million arena deal (including about $300 million in public subsidies) over who would pay the last $10 million in cost overruns, the plan has been declared officially dead by city officials:

It's official: the City's arena deal with the owners of the Calgary Flames has been terminated. The two parties had to agree by late on Dec 31 to proceed to construction and that did not happen. City manager says the deal will not be resurrected. #yyccc

— Scott Dippel (@CBCScott) January 3, 2022

The apparent fallback plan is for the Flames to remain at the Saddledome, where they have played in 1983. (The arena got an $18 million upgrade courtesy of the city in 1994, after the Flames owners dropped hints that they would move without one.) The Flamesnation fan site helpfully links to a CBC report from 2020 that used a Freedom of Information request to unearth a 2018 engineering report that projected $48 million in needed work over the next decade:

• Architectural, $33.8 million.

• Building envelope, $1.7 million.

• Structural, $3.1 million.

• Mechanical, $3.5 million.

• Refrigeration system, $1.7 million.

• Electrical, $4.9 million.

• Elevator, $90,000.

Most of that “architectural” work is repair work to the Saddledome’s distinctive saddle-shaped roof, which uses a unique system of concrete panels suspended from cables, making it hard to predict exactly how much work will be needed, since you can’t just go look at how other concrete-cable-suspended roofs have fared at age 39 and up.

As for who’ll pay for it, the CBC noted that the Flames are responsible for paying for building repairs via a maintenance account that’s funded by ticket surcharges. Flamesnation, however, implies that who pays is still up in the air:

So here’s what probably happens next: the two sides will sit down and come up with a plan to determine how extensive the work required for the Saddledome’s extended lifespan will really be. (And how much it will cost.) And then they need to discuss who pays how much of the expected costs.

The Flames have 11 years left on their lease at the Saddledome, so one would think Calgary could just point at that and say, “You agreed to do upkeep, you have the money, you’re only paying us $1 a year in rent, go have fun.” Though it’s always possible that the team and the city will sit down to discuss a lease extension beyond 2033, at which point building upgrades will almost certainly be on the table. It would be nice if somebody would file a Freedom of Information request to get a look at the lease; I can’t immediately tell if you have to be a Canadian to file one (this explainer says you need to be an “interested person”), so maybe some reader or journalist from Alberta would be interested in helping out with this? You know where to find me.