https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morni...nomic-malaise/
CFL expansion promoter eyes Charlottetown because of Halifax and Moncton’s ‘pervasive socio-economic malaise’
A colleague brought a story in the PEI Guardian to my attention. It’s about a proposal to bring a CFL team and stadium to Charlottetown. That’s right. When efforts have failed to secure a stadium in Moncton or Halifax, you keep going down on the sucker list. Who knows? Maybe Charlottetown will bite.
Logan MacLean reports on a presentation to Charlottetown’s committee for economic, tourism and cultural development, by Raymond Samuels, a team/stadium proponent. Of course, Samuels doesn’t say he hopes Islanders will be bigger suckers than mainlanders. Rather, the stalled efforts in Halifax and Moncton leave the door open for PEI.
Yeah, OK. That’s one way to look at it.
From MacLean’s story:
This is a great initiative for the Island,” [Samuels] said. “It is a multifaceted proposal which incorporates with that an outdoor stadium, the Island’s first outdoor stadium. It would be multipurpose in concept, and an extensive sort of social housing infrastructure as part of the concept.”
The idea includes a new, 25,000-seat stadium, tentatively called Confederation Square. The organization had spoken with some local property owners but did not have a location picked yet, Samuels said.
The Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce supports the idea “in principle” of course, even though there is no site, no funding model (Samuels wants the support of politicians before seeking partners), and there’s been no gauging interest among residents.
And, a 25,000-seat stadium to serve an island whose population is about 175,000? Sure, people travel to PEI, and I can imagine going on holiday and also taking in a football game. But is that a sustainable model?
In a new twist, Samuels says “social housing” would be an integral part of the stadium development, and would require government funding. See? So you might hate sports, but do you hate providing low-cost housing too?
To his credit, MacLean follows up with Samuels to try and pin him down on some — any — specifics:
Samuels wanted to wait for word from the city council on its next steps before revealing details about other collaborators. He did expand on who has shown interest, saying 95 per cent of people he’s spoken with in business and community organizations have been keen on the idea.
“This is the kind of energy we’ve been getting from people in Charlottetown, outside of Charlottetown, on the Island.”
Well, I guess we might as well start breaking ground for the stadium then.
On its website, the Atlantic Moose describes itself as “a community-driven consortium which seeks to establish the Canadian football league’s 10th team on Prince Edward Island in the proposed Confederation Stadium complex.
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