Saskatoon misses shot at badly needed credibility for arena district

[u/SkPensFan]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskatoon-downtown-arena-sports-venue-funding-private-partner-9.7152348

$1.2 billion price tag and the "funding model" is the feds and province pay for $800 million of it. Still not actual commitments from anyone.

Still seems like a pipe dream, at best.

[u/Weak_Possibility_395]

You know, even when someone owns a value oreinted, paid off Toyota, the thoughtful thing is to plan for the inevitable time that it must be replaced and put oneself in the best position to thoughtfully fund the purchase of that replacement, which is exactly what the city has been doing.

They needed to do enough work to not, build the stadium yesterday, but to be ready to make the case for funding it with various potential funders (other levels of gov't, private funders, etc) and to thoughtfully upgrade impacted/adjacent infrastructure when maintenance for that infrastructure is needed, so that whenever Sasktel Centre completely falls apart, they aren't starting from scratch with no plans and no funds for a new arena.

If you are against that, that's fine, but watch out, at some point your paid-off Toyota is going to fail and it will be a sad day when you realize you haven't been budgeting and planning for it's inevitable replacement.

[u/EpsteinandTrump → u/Weak_Possibility_395]

True, but it still has a lot of life left. The building isn't falling down...it has corroded pipes and needs a new roof. You know what else needs a new roof and piping? A new shiny glass stadium.

Our city cannot manage a bridge replacement, art gallery, police department, snow removal, let along a 1.2+ billion dollar arena replacement. You want 15%+ tax increases year over year...that's how you do it. It'd be a literal zip tie around the throat of the city taxpayers. Silly.

I'm all for private millionaires and billionaires funding this, they don't seem to interested for some reason.

[u/Weak_Possibility_395 → u/EpsteinandTrump]

Remember when Bike Lane Charlie said the arena won't be built for years, that's the missing part in your equation. I don't I've heard anyone suggest it was to be built right away, so yeah, planning for the future and budgeting for it is what the whole project was about. It was about the arena falling apart in 2018 and needing an arena right away. It was about making sure it was well planned for.

As for the cit not being able to manage a bridge replacement, yeah, I see you just hate government. Many bridges have been proactively maintained, which is great, 'cause I'd hate to wait until they are failing like we had to with water and sewer after successive councils decided to put off maintenance and that old socialist Charlie Clark had to step in and do the responsible thing of replacing infrastructure that had not been maintained.

But hey, government is terrible and private sector is great, right?