Yes... They will finanlly get it
No.... They will screw this up royally
hmmm... not sure? how much money will they make from this?
Construction costs are always higher in Canada vs the U.S., pretty much for everything. Plus Marlins Park looks pretty plain compared to the artists rendering of the cricket stadium. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual costs exceed $1 billion.Originally Posted by Kaz
Nor do I, unless I'm bringing the baby, and want to get home quickly. I'm quite happy to pay the $10 ... it's not like parking is going to be much less than that. And TTC is painfully slow getting to the game (though I'm an Ossington bus fan when I do).
Either way, driving isn't much of an option. If heading to a pub, the driving is out. If bringing the baby ... well getting stuck on the Gardiner is even worse with screaming baby.
There's no reason why that proposed cricket stadium couldn't be built in stages, just to spread out the costs over time. Like the idea of that clubby-looking, green-roofed pavilion.
After recently looking over the Pan-Am venues, I still can't believe the city, the Argos and York U couldn't come to some arrangement to do a post-games re-build and make this venue into a CFL stadium with flexible seating arrangements. Plenty of space to accommodate the longer CFL field. All the stands on the near side and corners are temporary. Put in stands with retractable seating to let the school make multiple uses of it. When the subway connects to the university campus, it'll be perfect for the Argos and for YU football and athletic events.
If the Argos host another Grey Cup in Toronto (becoming like a life-saving fund raiser for them) they can always book the dome since the Jays will be finished.
Last edited by greatwhitenorf; 07-10-2014 at 02:33 PM.
There's no reason why that proposed cricket stadium couldn't be built in stages, just to spread out the costs over time. Like the idea of that clubby-looking, green-roofed pavilion.
After recently looking over the Pan-Am venues, I still can't believe the city, the Argos and York U couldn't come to some arrangement to do a post-games re-build and make this venue into a CFL stadium with flexible seating arrangements. Plenty of space to accommodate the longer CFL field. All the stands on the near side and corners are temporary. Put in stands with retractable seating to let the school make multiple uses of it. When the subway connects to the university campus, it'll be perfect for the Argos and for YU football and athletic events.
If the Argos host another Grey Cup in Toronto (becoming like a life-saving fund raiser for them) they can always book the dome since the Jays will be finished.
This was a last minute thing (last minute ish in this set of circumstances)
This was suppose to be in Hamilton at the Stadium that was being built there.. but Bob Young and spineless council. So when Federal money went to building a new stadium for the Ti-Cats.. they had to move all the track events to York. Of course this now meant instead of Track and Rugby 7 being in Hamilton.. you only had one weekend of Rugby 7 in a Multimillion dollar stadium. So Rugby 7 was moved from Hamilton to Toronto, and Soccer was taken out of the National Soccer Stadium and moved to Hamilton and a new Track venue had to be built at York. I think it is part of the reason why the Feds and Province as so against/hesitant providing money for BMO.
$5 both ways!? that is a good deal. problem is I try and get the stadium at least an hour before game time then I stick around about 30 minutes to an hour after the match (if they win). So I would miss that 3 hour window for sure.
I think once TFC/Metrolinx implement that free ride with a game day ticket promo, I may take the GO more often.
Is there a place to park at the Danforth Go?
My current route is to take the Gardiner to Yonge; Yonge up to Wellington; Wellington across to Bay; Bay up to Richmond; Richmond across to Bathurst; I then get through Graffiti Alley to Tecumseth; Then up to Queen; across to Dufferin and then down to the parking lot.
Takes about 30 minutes on a Saturday afternoon to do that.
45 minutes for a Wednesday evening match
They should call the GO the WAIT.
45 mins? You could drive to Waterloo over that same time frame.
Traffic flow is the issue. Gardiner to Lakeshore and park. Done. Except of course they are throwing condos up everywhere around a road that can't support traffic patterns from 20 years ago.
For most of us, drive or GO/WAIT offer the same travel times with similar headaches. Unfortunately, BMO is not convenient to get to. A 905 stadium would make better sense for the market they are going after. Affluent business owners and managers that are snapping up homes in the GTA.
Don't see them moving though.
There must be someone with some kind of money making the Toronto real estate market the hottest in the country....
Must be. Though I'd rather be the guy making money on the GTA's urban sprawl which is 5x the rate of Toronto.
"The population in Toronto’s core neighbourhoods grew by 52,000 people from 2006 to 2011, and the transit suburbs grew by another 26,000 people, which was good news. Meanwhile, the less sustainable exurban and automobile suburbs grew by 390,000 people, or 83 per cent of the regional growth."
http://m.thestar.com/#/article/opini...f_control.html
I am from the suburbs and I think a stadium built in the burbs would of been a bad idea. For those with no car or who would like to drink and take transit home after the game, many areas in suburbs unless you are right by a GO station you would have to travel by bus after getting off at the GO station. Bus service in many areas is every half hour, and often every hour or so after dinner rush hour, many areas have barely any or even no service after 10:00pm - 11:00pm, so those that want to stay after games for drinks with friends, may have made it difficult at later hours. Had it been say in the East Side of the city in Pickering or Ajax or Oshawa that would of doubled the travel time for those in the West in Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Longbranch exc. Had the stadium been built in the West like Oakville or Mississauga then those on Oshawa, pickering exc would of had a long travel. Had the stadium been built in somewhere like North Mississauga or Brampton, there would of been no transit lines for a big majority of the people (they have GO train lines that only run during rush hours, all GO train lines generally direct everyone to Union, without connecting people to other lines without arriving to Union first). Had it been built in the North like Vaghan, well that would of been a long, long commute for those in the East and West suburbs. Also outside of older small downtown areas (which generally are built up and have no space left to build anyways) are just houses, plazas, Boston Pizza's, Kelsey's, East Side Mario's, Wal-Marts, and Metro's with the odd decent pub here and there. There really isn't a whole lot to do for a lot of the suburbs.
Exhibtion is sort of middle ground for everybody. Close to the heart of Downtown where you can find and do just about anything entertainments wise. The only place better then Exhibition location may have been closer to Union, as those who are not a long the Lakeshore line may not have needed to change forms of transit links at Union to travel to Exhibtion. All transit lines direct people towards the downtown core, where other areas in the city and outside of the city transit does not direct you towards. Overall I think its a great location and many would agree.
Last edited by james; 07-11-2014 at 01:46 PM.
Talk to Fire Supporters, who are a 45 minute drive from downtown to their stadium.
It would be like putting the stadium out in Milton.
ya what a mission that would be. I live in Oakville which isn't that far from Milton, yet it still a mission. Many people in Milton have to travel by GO bus to get the GO train in Oakville to Toronto because outside of rush hour I don't think there is an train service in Milton. Also from where I am there is no high way or anything to get there, you got to travel up North on Trafalgar road, which is a rather busy main road, it would't beable to handle thousands for a Soccer Stadium, at least I don't think it would.
Yup, couldn't agree more, the only location better than Exhibition is Union. "All roads lead to Rome..." er, Union in this case.
Being located centrally is the only way to go.
Couldn't agree more.
Only issue with the location is the weather off the lake in the spring and fall ... hopefully they will solve that with the roofs ... until the fog rolls in
Ever been to Foxboro Mass? 80,000 fans make their way to a make shift "town" with all the pregame trappings you'd enjoy.
In any event, keep it downtown. There certainly are people that live in Toronto. But there is a risk for TFC.
The reality is that the population is growing more outside of Toronto. There is a reason that an NHL stadium is a viable consideration in Markham. Or that York U was a valid option prior to the Ex for BMO.
With growing numbers of people commuting to the city during the week, the thought of commuting again for an evening game or weekend may wear thin over time.
One of the differences from Toronto compared to other cities is the mass influx of young people to condos downtown. The growing market for this team is downtown.
But the target audience seems to be business owners and managers. That implies a slightly older demographic. Ones with or soon starting families. Families are in the burbs.
All one needs to do is look at the problems they have with the LA franchises. Los Angeles as an enormous hotbed of football support with its large population overall and Latin American influence and yet, StubHub Center is rarely full. (And I'm talking the Galaxy, Chivas is a completely other matter...). Add in Orange County, San Diego County and beyond and you have probably the biggest football market in the U.S. by a mile and still they can't fill the stadium. The reason is that Carson is virtually inaccessible by anything other than a car. I've been there and thought: "how the heck would I have any chance of going to see this without my own car?" Were StubHub where the Staples Center is, it could easily rival what the Sounders see at CenturyLink Field even with a vastly inferior team on the pitch.
And LA has amazing (re: almost rain-free) weather. We have wind, rain, snow and bugs all in one season. It's already easy to see how fickle some fans are when it rains and they announce the 'sellout' crowd that is probably 65 per cent actually in the stands. Add in travel time and more headaches -- and Toronto's traffic all over is not and will not get any better, ever -- and people will start spending their entertainment dollars elsewhere. The stadium needs to be closest to the most and convenient and right now BMO is about as good as it gets in that regard. York U is another possible answer for the Argos given their demographic, but that's for a similar reason: Easy to get to by multiple means.
LA overall is lacking in transit. They have a major bus system, but as far as trains and subways, they are small systems. LA being a young city even on North American terms is why it was designed for the car, and is built over a massive sprawl of houses, Just like many suburbs of Toronto. Towns along the Lakeshore aren't to bad with GO trains now every half hour, but you head north of the lake area, like Mississauga North, Brampton, Milton and train transit is bad. Even connecting to Hamilton is very bad (tho I think they are finally improving rail through Brampton to Kitchener as well as Lakeshore connecting to downtown Hamilton.) Don't know to much about the East transit and Vaghan, Markham kind of areas. But I assume worse then the Lakeshore lines. Anyways I couldn't imagine playing in areas like LA Galaxy, Chicago, New England, Dallas....they are all way out of the inner cities in the suburbs and even edging the country side.
I will admit that easier to get to downtown Toronto through transit than 905 region, but given population boom in 905 region, I wouldn't be surprised if there's stadium built for Football or Soccer pro team in the future in 905 region.
There's a reason why Ontario government is going to spend billions in transit in GTA and Hamilton upcoming years. So some of transit issues we're facing right now should be solved soon (for an example, LRT being built starting from Port Credit GO station which will go all the way north to downtown Brampton).
I see lots of families in the city, but that's beside the point.
For the stadium location - it kind of sucks for everyone right now. You move it to the burbs, you make it suck less for a few people - an suck a whole lot more for most everyone else (including a lot of folks in the burbs).
Your arguments about people commuting hold true as well. Put it In the west , great for folks out that way, but people in the East are still looking at a commute - only now it's longer.
And you cut a large swath of the downtown demo out - the ones that wouldn't go to the burbs of you put a gun to their head. They also tend to be the ones with no families and a higher disposable income.
I would like to think transit in the entire GTA will improve, but massive system like this will take a few decades (if they ever get building rather then starting and stopping, this is Toronto you know,) Anyways, I still don't know why they would even need to move to the suburbs whether the transit improves or not? they are renovating BMO field, there is lots of space in the Exhibition area, and transit will always be more or less designed to get people in and out of the city. Toronto is more densely populated and always will be unless the suburbs start knocking down houses and building high rises and townhouses everywhere. Being more densely populated means more people will have to travel less distances then lesser densely populated areas.
If anyone needs a stadium in the suburbs it's the Argonauts.
A perfect day for football on Saturday, roof open, Calgary Stampeders in with an injury-hit squad. Announced crowd of just over 16,000. Same conditions the week before for Saskatchewan's visit and they draw a similar crowd. Some observers thought the actual bums-in-seats count was considerably lower.
Argos are dying slowly and painfully. Their situation kind of reminds me what Montreal Expos went through before they left.
I am starting to think BMO field will be bad idea for Argos unless they're owned by MLSE. Renting BMO field isn't cheap compare to Rogers Centre due to several union contracts. So you're paying rent and plus another $100,000 per game to union folks.
A bad idea compared to what? Building a multimillion dollar brand new stadium?
Simple equation. If the Argos are worth saving they need a place to play. BMO is the cheapest and phase 3 of the most recent agreement allows for them to come.
Forming partnership with an university like how Montreal did? (CFL likes to use Montreal example a lot when comes to Argos)
This would be the best idea. Clearly it makes too much sense for Toronto.
In fact, it might make sense to get the universities and Argos together on a single "U of T, York, Argos" multi-use stadium. But it'll never happen. In the 60s Ontario built and expanded a lot of universities and each one has it's own adminsitration and operates separately instead of having a University of Ontario with one president, one administration and a lot of campuses, like USA state schools or University of Quebec.
well said , thats why I felt their only hope was with York U. U of T couldn't care less about the Argos or their sports complex's for that matter . Just keep building up their treasure chest . Even though they treasure being rated a top ten North American education facility they don't rate athletics all that highly . At least any sports that have any higher costs associated in them .
ALL HELL'S BROKEN LOOSEhttp://gfycat.com/SharpKindArrowana
You mean the original proposal for what is now BMO? Just need the CSA to get involved and now you are talking
Would it make sense though economically?
Quick google search says that adding 5,000 seats to the McGill stadium cost close to $30M. That brought capacity to 25,000.
Current Varsity stadium is about 5,000 seats right now after a good portion of it was demolished due to structural concerns. Cost would be huge.
Phase 3 (ie. Argos at BMO) goes ahead with $20M according to this city document http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-70432.pdf . My calculator would suggest that for the lowest cost they could walk into a state of the art facility and negotiate their own revenue share with the City for events they are involved with.
Interesting point though. A lot of talk around Varsity Stadium initially and then the York U site was that it was to be a multipurpose with the Arogs, University and TFC. Maybe the Blues would get playing time at BMO as well. I've got to think that it would host Vanier Cup events quite nicely.
Last edited by Pookie; 07-13-2014 at 05:41 PM.
Another interesting tidbit from the latest city docs:
- if the Argos don't move in, MLSE will reimburse the city for any shortfall in revenues (ie. parking)
- if they do move in, MLSE reduces its annual "guaranteed payment" to the city
- Argos/Phase 3 moves ahead with $20M in funding from the government or other sources… or if MLSE decides to waive the conditions.
- Construction for phase 3 would take 10 months to complete.
- Phase 1 (8,000 new seats) slated to be completed by May 1st, 2015.
- Phase 2 (roof and additional seats) to be completed by May 1st, 2016
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-70433.pdf
Last edited by Pookie; 07-13-2014 at 05:51 PM.
The one that gets me is:
Partial???Completion of new partial roof
–
May 1, 2016.
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