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Originally Posted by someone123
I don't really agree there's a lack of space. I think it was a lack of planning and coordination. Shannon Park was a huge empty area that would have been a better trade-off for accessibility for everyone. The Commons could also work. There are numerous reasons why these plans didn't pan out but they have more to do with political failures than space or financial viability. It is like a person who says "I can't have a car because I have no space and no money" but their front yard is overgrown with weeds and they will only buy an amphibious vehicle with a propeller on top.
Halifax has a huge amount of leap-frog sprawl, and poor land use that's been promoted by these political failures (rudderless municipality, dysfunctional provincial role, other institutions like Canada Lands that are very slow with poor outcomes).
Given all that, we can still say given the earlier failures, it's fine if a private group builds something out by the airport, and maybe better than nothing.
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Unfortunately just because a site is big doesn’t mean that a stadium can easily be built there. There are always considerations that have to be made regarding prior land use, environment, and geology, and sometimes that throws a wrench into things, especially when trying to build a stadium on properties that have been in use for a long time (don’t ask me how I know this lol). The Halifax Common, for example, was a swamp at one point in time and has been backfilled, regraded, etc at various points since the mid-1700s. Shannon Park was also a military property which comes with its own issues. A situation like that creates significant uncertainty in the preparatory phase about whether or not the material has the correct geotechnical properties (is the underlying material dense and dry enough to support a foundation) or suitable environmental quality (i.e., not contaminated) for the intended land use, and the ensuing back and forth about who is going to agree to pay for the remediation, especially if the entity building the stadium is looking to acquire the land. These issues can be sorted out with time, but it can take a long time and may not align with the window of opportunity for stadium construction.
My opinion here is that building on a greenfield site represents the least potential for issues to emerge, which allows things to move faster within that window of opportunity. That being said, there are probably better places in Halifax than the airport to do this, but building it here is absolutely better than doing nothing and dithering for another decade.
As for US investor involvement, I think the CFL has been a big money making/investing opportunity for a while, but for whatever reason is that it just hasn’t been able to gain traction for the past generation. My view is that there have always been better opportunities in the Big 4 available in the past, but with team valuations in the Big 4 exploding there are a lot of people getting priced out of potential ownership. There is a lot of room for upward growth in CFL valuations (which are at rock bottom in comparison) so that might potentially be enticing for people that are wealthy but not wealthy enough for the Big 4.
If this ends up being the case and ends up panning out, I think it will bode well for other potential CFL cities across the country, including Quebec City and Victoria.
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