Raise the Hammer

Hamilton city council will make a once in a generation decision for its citizens on January 12, 2011.

Council has three options:

1. To bring and pass a motion to submit a proposal to Toronto 2015 before February 1st to build a scalable 6,000 seat west harbour stadium and a velodrome;
2. To withdraw from building the stadium and to build only the velodrome;
3. To withdraw from the Pan Am Games altogether.

The following seven factors, in no particular order, need to be considered carefully by city council in making their decision:

1. The cost and complexity of remediating the 23 acre west harbour brownfield lands to build residences would be much higher than the cost and complexity of remediating the lands to build the Pan Am stadium and velodrome.

2. The risk of future liability to the City of Hamilton in trying to sell remediated brownfield lands to developers to build residences on these lands would also be higher than the city retaining ownership of these lands.

3. Federal and provincial funding is available right now for 56 per cent of the construction costs of a scalable 6,000 seat Pan Am stadium and a velodrome on this property. If the City of Hamilton passes on this opportunity, how many years will it take to secure private and/or public funding to build anything on these lands?

4. As noted in a previous post, the west harbour Pan Am facilities would provide Hamilton the opportunity to become the home base for a number of Canada’s national soccer youth developmental teams, a possible soccer hub for southwestern Ontario, an indoor cycling hub for eastern Canada and the northeast United States, and facilities for community use by all Hamiltonians and young Hamiltonians in the lower city in particular.

5. The reduction of the stadium seating capacity to 6,000 will greatly reduce the traffic impact upon the surrounding neighbourhoods in comparison to the originally contemplated 25,000 seat stadium.

6. The construction of west harbour Pan Am facilities would probably expedite full GO train service to Hamilton.

7. Having the Pan Am facilities at the west harbour will display our restored waterfront to out-of-town Canadians and visitors from the other 41 Pan Am nations and hopefully provide some much needed esteem into the Hamilton community as well as a renewed interest in downtown development.

We have now reached a crucial moment where Hamiltonians must decide what is best for Hamilton. The construction of the scalable west harbour Pan Am stadium and the velodrome (Option 1) is probably the best use the city can achieve for those brownfield lands given the limited resources this city has. Equally important is that this option recaptures most of the city building benefits envisioned by the City of Hamilton in February, 2009 when it first decided to financially participate in the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games bid.

Good luck to Hamilton city council in making the decision that brings the most benefit to its citizens.

Comment edited by RenaissanceWatcher on 2011-01-09 13:33:54