Raise the Hammer

Mr. Young, As you are a member of this site, I am sure you are aware of the often cited suburban stadium failures that are now being replaced with urban stadiums. I am curious to know, what are you planning on doing differently to prevent a similar failure? Furthermore, with numerous examples of successful urban waterfront stadiums, coupled with the consultants report (IBI's traffic study) what exactly are you so opposed to? I am not trying to be argumentative, I simply don't understand your perspective. P.S. I sincerely appreciate the fact that you are engaging the RTH community on this issue.

This has been a busy thread, but here are some answers to a much earlier post:

Every waterfront is different. Some waterfronts work brilliantly for stadiums. But most of those (Toronto, Baltimore, Chicago, among others) had a lot of road and transit access to the waterfront long before any stadiums were built there. Hamilton's West Harbour waterfront has neither good road nor transit access. The part of Hamilton's waterfront that does have good road and transit access, ie Confederation Park, is not being considered for a variety of reasons you'll have to ask council to explain.

The IBI study by the admission of the IBI staff was badly flawed due to the poor initial mandate for the study. It was not asked to look at the stadium as fully configured, ie it was only asked to comment on the initial 15,000 seat stadium, not the fully built-out 25,000+ seat stadium. Much less a stadium that could be expanded 45,000 to host a Grey Cup event. And, oddly enough, IBI were not asked to talk to the future tenants of the building, resulting in their not understanding the needs of Tiger-Cat customers.

The other reason that the East Mountain, while far from perfect, works is because of its proximity to downtown. It is closer to Hamilton's downtown at King and James St (6km) than Yonge and Eglinton is to Toronto's downtown at King and Bay St. (7km). It is approximately the same distance Yankee Stadium is from mid-town Manhattan in New York City.

And while downtown stadiums can work with the appropriate access, parking, and other infrastructure to support them, they are not the only stadiums that work.

As I said to Ryan, it is pleasure to meet so many motivated Hamiltonians on this site and in these forums. We may disagree on specific projects but I respect and value your passion for improving our city.

Cheers, Bob.