The Winnipeg Free Press broke the new football stadium story this past weekend and on Tuesday, in its follow-up story, the paper wrote the following: “The new (stadium) deal would see the province reduce its commitment, in exchange for providing the financing necessary to build the stadium before The Elms get up and running. The city would act as insurance, should Creswin fail to assemble the retail project.”
Other than the fact the “deal” has no eyes and can’t see anything at all and that there is a comma in the middle of the first sentence that shouldn’t be there, to claim “the city would act as insurance,” is an odd and potentially frightening sentence. How would the city “act as insurance?” Where was this insurance money coming from?
Well, after a conversation with Mayor Sam Katz on Tuesday night,here’s the deal: The province will find the money (loans likely) to start construction on the stadium and, ultimately, David Asper will build a commercial mall that will be used to pay the debt on the stadium. However, if Asper can’t build his commercial development, The Elms, then the city would turn over all the property tax money that the city will receive on the current stadium land to the province to pay back the loans.
In other words, the city doesn’t receive any property tax money on that land today (the Bombers play in the stadium rent and tax free), but if some developer other than Asper purchased the land and built something (anything?) on the land, the tax money the city received for that land — and that land alone — would go to the province to pay the debts on the new stadium at the U of M.
That seems reasonable. Ultimately, the city would be turning nothing into a new stadium.
I was told last night that Selinger’s new deal should be palatable for most taxpayers and the Premier is correct when he says there is no intelligent reason why more money should be shoveled into the toilet that is Canad Inns Stadium. According to the Premier, it would take $52 million to repair (not refurbish, but “repair”) the current stadium and that’s just throwing good money after bad.
Wednesday’s announcement will be the best news the Bombers have had since 1990. For those who have lost count, that’s the last time the Bombers won a Grey Cup.