Development Rumours

[Antigonish]

A stadium in the middle of nowhere out by the airport. I'll pass.

[Jstaleness]

Originally Posted by Antigonish

A stadium in the middle of nowhere out by the airport. I'll pass.

As someone stated above, yes, this is great for traveling teams for quick easy access to the Airport and accommodations, but I too struggle to see how this would be good for a "local" fan base. (Unless more people will be coming from out of province for the CFL portion...

[Haligonian88]

Originally Posted by JC1994

Any chance you can share more of this so we don't have to pay $15 a month to read about this?

US-based Group is Ridgehaven Holdings LLC. CEO is 29-year old Mason Williams, a lawyer and NFL/CFL agent.

Land owners are Aerotech Developments GP, a partnership between Clayton Developments and Marchand Homes.

Ridgehaven is looking at multiple sites for this entertainment district for all of Atlantic Canada. Confirmed Aerotech site is one of the sites.

Leaked slide deck suggests a shark-themed CFL team.

Would target 200 events per year. LiveNation would handle events.

Looking for a local owner (of CFL team I assume).

City/province receptive so far.

[GTG_78]

Originally Posted by terrynorthend

No government money or assistance beyond water/wastewater service.
CFL team would start in 2027, playing at St. Mary's University, until stadium is ready 2030. Full complex build out by 2033/34.

There is a 0% chance that something like this gets built without some government concessions. That does not happen anywhere in the world.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Antigonish

A stadium in the middle of nowhere out by the airport. I'll pass.

I assume this kind of location would be because they imagine a large part of game-day attendance would be people from well beyond HRM, even NB, and this would be an easier drive. Plus there's no obvious city centre location.

But 200+ events per year means lots more than just football games. I do detest the idea of building some entertainment megaplex 30 minutes outside the city, potentially drawing vitality away from the core so that people from Truro can drive there easier.

[someone123]

How is LRT to the airport supposed to work? There isn't currently any right of way going from there into the urban core. The CN line only approximately serves these areas and they didn't want to consider even a very limited commuter rail line schedule. HRM has spent many years trying to put BRT along 10 blocks of Robie Street. I don't want to be negative, but it seems like magical thinking to me to believe that car-oriented suburban planning will come with previously unimaginable levels of transit.

I'll wait to see what they propose before I make up my mind but to me this seems like HRM and the province abdicating their roles or not knowing what is good for the city. It makes sense that a private promoter might make a deal like this on a large greenfield site as it is a big opportunity nobody is taking advantage of, but it's not necessarily consistent with HRM's desired planning outcomes. The narrow focus on "not spending" instead of cost vs. benefit means potential missed opportunities to get much better outcomes.

A stadium is becoming more and more of a "no-brainer" as the city grows. The Halifax market has maybe 700,000 or so people now who can easily get there for events, and ticket prices have skyrocketed, but the event infrastructure is approximately the same as it was 45 years ago. It's not all bad; it is good for the city to have more of this type of infrastructure, but maybe it would be worth the governments spending 1% of GDP or whatever to promote a better outcome, or doing some effective planning around this during the past 25 years.

[worldlyhaligonian]

April 1st was over a month ago...

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

It seems that they're not wanting to build just a stadium but rather an entire entertainment district for all of Atlantic Canada which will have a 27,000 seat multi-use stadium as a centre piece. I suspect that from their point of view that the further away from competing hotels and restaurants the better. They're talking 1000 permanent jobs. Clayton Developments (Shaw) and Marchand Homes share ownership of the property. Good for them. Like others, a proper LRT route to the airport was one of my first thoughts. But I think similar to Someone and I struggle to see our city being able to actually put it together. Currently the proposed site lacks sewer/water infrastructure.

[Colin May]

More jobs off the peninsula is a very sensible proposition as well as forward thinking.
We need more jobs close to where people live and close to where significant growth is taking place.

[Dartguard]

Things that make you go HMMM. IF and its a big one this Entertainment center gets built it reminds me of the big picture vision the Developer of Dartmouth Crossing had when visiting from Calgary years ago. I can't remember his name but the N/A developer drove by the former asphalt plant/quarry and asked himself why that space was not developed. He got in touch with the Family that owned it, made a Deal and whoosh. Can anyone imagine Dartmouth without that now?

Perhaps this Lawyer see's something we do not and at 29 is thinking ahead.
The Enfield area is booming just beyond this proposed space and even I have stared thinking that the newer exit for Lantz is now the Castle wall for the Greater Halifax area. We need some away thinking and perhaps this young man and two local prominent Companies are seeing it too.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

More jobs off the peninsula is a very sensible proposition as well as forward thinking.
We need more jobs close to where people live and close to where significant growth is taking place.

How is an empty parcel of land by the highway near the airport closer to where people live or current growth than the peninsula?

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

How is an empty parcel of land by the highway near the airport closer to where people live or current growth than the peninsula?

I suggest your sit on the 102 just south of the Airport and count the cars en route to metro any time after 6 a.m on weekdays. And then do the same at other routes to the peninsula. The suburbs are growing faster than the peninsula and will continue to do do. Not many children on the peninsula.
The census is your friend and guide to the future.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

The census is your friend and guide to the future.

We've covered growth by distance from the urban core as provided by Statistics Canada on here and the vast bulk is near the peninsula, not out by the airport.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I assume this kind of location would be because they imagine a large part of game-day attendance would be people from well beyond HRM, even NB, and this would be an easier drive. Plus there's no obvious city centre location.

The private developers will also be able to do a larger mixed-use development there so they can capture related revenue streams like hotel nights and restaurant rents.

I don't necessarily think it will be unsuccessful and it could be done in a way that is not entirely car focused, but at a high level it seems like a sign of how poorly HRM operates that they tried to build a stadium for 20 years, couldn't figure it out, and now a private group may build this regional amenity on their own terms. There are some good things happening in Halifax for sure, but the municipality and province seem to struggle to build much of real value for the public good. Imagine if, in an alternate universe, they had figured out transit in 2015 and a mixed-use development with stadium were going around Cogswell and the casino lands.

A middle path, which is compatible with what we've heard so far, would be something like a mixed-use not-totally-car-oriented pod of development near the airport with a stadium and good transit connections both to the airport and city centre.

[Drybrain]

Delete

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by someone123

...at a high level it seems like a sign of how poorly HRM operates that they tried to build a stadium for 20 years, couldn't figure it out, and now a private group may build this regional amenity on their own terms.

I think again of something like Queen's Marque, which created the first truly excellent large-scale public space in the city in years, and which no level of government had anything to do with.

The city has done some very nice small-scale stuff (streetscaping projects, small projects like the new parkette at the foot of Citadel Hill that replaced the slip lane) but there is a real inability to make and excute grand plans, or not go back to the drawing board a hundred times. The will-they-won't-they over the Forum is one example. At a somewhat smaller scale, there's news in AllNS today that the city is actually looking at retaining the old Memorial Library and looking into how it can be repurposed. That's great news, but it follows years of sitting on the property and hemming and hawing over it. Hemming and hawing is our civic specialty.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Colin May

I suggest your sit on the 102 just south of the Airport and count the cars en route to metro any time after 6 a.m on weekdays. And then do the same at other routes to the peninsula. The suburbs are growing faster than the peninsula and will continue to do do. Not many children on the peninsula.
The census is your friend and guide to the future.

The suburban areas out by the airport/Enfield way are most definitely not growing faster than the peninsula, in percentage terms or by raw numbers. Last year's Halifax Index included Statcan data on population growth at the community level. Between 2021 and 2024, 46,000 people were added to HRM: nearly 11,000 to the peninsula, and 13,000 to Halifax Mainland, the cluster of relatively central suburban areas along the west side of the harbour. Next was Dartmouth, and at a census-tract level, it's obvious that most of that growth was in the central parts of Dartmouth.

Overall, 34,400 people were added to "urban" areas, mostly clustering toward the core. 11,600 went to rural areas. The suburban and rural census tracts on the east side of HRM, near and beyond the airport, had generally the slowest growth of all.

If you want to be near people, you don't go to Enfield and environs. The only reason to go out there is so that people from far and wide, beyond HRM, can have easy driving access. And maybe that's fine, but let's not pretend it's because Halifax's exurbs are where growth is booming. It is true that if you add up all non-peninsula areas, they're growing collectively faster than the peninsula. That doesn't mean that growth is moving to the fringes; rather, it's concentrating in and near the core.

[LikesBikes]

I don't get the point of having sporting complexes out in the middle of nowhere. Who wants to drive 30 minutes+ after a match when you're tired, intoxicated, and/or might want to do something afterwards. The best stadiums/complexes are in dense environments.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by LikesBikes

I don't get the point of having sporting complexes out in the middle of nowhere. Who wants to drive 30 minutes+ after a match when you're tired, intoxicated, and/or might want to do something afterwards. The best a/complexes are in dense environments.

Their business plan appears to have you get intoxicated at their bars, eat at their restaurants and sleep at their hotels before you head home. It's a good plan. They don't see residents of the peninsula as their sole market.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Not a rumour but seems to fit here right now... AllNS reporting this morning that Armour Group is about to start construction on a new office building in Burnside...not downtown and they are working on an addition to an office building in Bedford also not downtown. In spite of having all of these new beautiful land lots in the Cogswell District there's no easy way to get to them. It's likely the Cogswell land lots have a reduced value due to their relative isolation from major population centres due to lack of road/bridge infrastructure and reasonable transit options.