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In the news
Downtown Arena Meeting
Edmontonians have their say about the downtown arena project at city hall.
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i believe that the city needs to stop investing so much money into this arena and start to help people who really need help like the homeless, lower income families and most importantly kids in need. The city just keeps wasting all there meeting times on the same discussion over and over. its time to move on because we have a perfectly good arena here that the city could help upgrade..... -
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I think the idea for a new arena is great. the location need to be seriously rethought. traffic around rexall and downtown are terrible already. combine the two, and it will be absolutely terrible, and chaotic. If it were where rexall is now, or in a different location all together, it would be a fantastic idea, for all parties involved.
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yes this might "revitalize" the downtown, but at what cost? sports economics studies have shown that these types of mega projects only shift money around - that is, they will move money people would have spent anyways to a new area of the city. they don't bring significant new tourism dollars to the city. the coliseum area will become depressed, and the city will be heavily in debt. if you want to make an argument that it will be an amazing project to define the city, or another non-economic argument so be it, but to me the economic argument holds no merit. the arena will have hardly any more seats than the current one, just tons of more luxury boxes. and you can't say that the oilers "need it", because again the studies show the shiny new arena doesn'
t help teams win. -
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People have to realize that this is about aiding the downtown core itself. Look at the Art Gallery and Windspear, not everyone attends things there and yet we have them. And we have the Jubilee so don't go saying we can't have two entertainment housing facilities in this city.
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It would be laughable that Edmonton is again on the verge of sinking millions into yet another downtown white elephant if it wasn't for the fact that Alberta taxpayers will be on the hook for a large percentage of this project at some point. Also, nothing like inviting Vancouver-like issues into your downtown. Governments need to be reigned in. There's only one taxpaper, making the same salary. We can't continue on this path...
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That's what I was afraid of, it's going to be one-sided today. The people who are for the project obviously were not asked to speak, UNLESS they had conditions on it being built. That's our government for you. They are never willing to hear both sides of the story, instead make LOOK one sided, so they don't have to use their own heads and actually make a REAL decision.
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Its befuddles me how we have beat this up for 2 years and we really need a new building downtown and yet council had no issues spending 1/4 billion on the 23rd ave and there was no flak that the delays cost us more money from when it was firast proposed. Also I do not go to the museum or the art gallery but they are great for the city.
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For those who live and work downtown, this is a bad idea. any time there is a game or event, say goodbye to making it home in time for dinner with traffic. Have you seen the jams by Rexall Place as it is now? can you imagine that in our poorly laid out downtown grid? And how revitalized is the current arena and stadium areas of town now? especially with the shelters only a stone's throw away this new downtown will be a cesspool like Vancouver's downtown. Put the money in education or infrastucture, the actual future of the city rather than in the pockets of the elite 5% of Edmontonians who own businesses and land downtown.
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Nick C, you obviously don't own a home. TAXES ALWAYS GO UP. with this arena money gets diverted away from critcal things like shoveling snow. That paves the way for more increases to cover those services. Don't know how long youv'e been here but the City ran out of snow removal money last year.
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