Davison questions if ‘the right people’ are at the table to fix broken Event Centre deal
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
195.49529
Summary
In this episode, former Councillor Jeff Davison talks about why the Calgary arena deal has come to a halt and why he thinks the city should have done things differently. He also talks about the BMO expansion in the city of Calgary and what it could look like in the future.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Good afternoon. I'm Melanie Risden with the Western Standard. Joining me right now is former
00:00:05.460
councillor Jeff Davison. He was also a former mayoral candidate and we're just checking in
00:00:12.560
with Jeff basically because the arena project in the city of Calgary was a real pet project of
00:00:20.860
Mr. Davison's and we wanted to check in with him and just get a feel for his thoughts on how
00:00:26.980
everything has sort of come to a complete halt and by the sounds of it the arena deal the the event
00:00:35.760
project deal is is basically gone belly up and so let's let's just check in with Jeff now and
00:00:44.480
how about you just let us know what you've been up to these days Jeff? Well you know it's a it's a
00:00:51.140
wonderful life not being elected you know you still get brought into the fray on major projects that
00:00:55.400
you've been working on but I'll tell you that there's a lot going on in the city in this province
00:00:59.740
and I'll have probably more to say that towards the end of Q1. Okay that sounds good so this arena
00:01:08.340
deal was a real pet project of yours you really were spearheading it and championing for it do you
00:01:15.120
want to give me a sort of a brief snapshot of that for you in your in your term as councillor? Yeah I
00:01:21.900
mean you know I wouldn't classify it as so much as a pet project but really saw the economic and
00:01:26.900
recovery benefits that a new facility would offer you know we really needed to think about looking
00:01:31.780
at other jurisdictions and how did they make an anchor facility really enact the development of an
00:01:36.760
entire district and that's what we've always been after here you know the entire Victoria Park area
00:01:41.460
has been you know frankly desolate for over 35 years the saddle dome was never the intended target
00:01:47.560
to spur on development and so we really wanted to look at if we brought a facility a new facility
00:01:53.640
into the community and then built the community around that what would that look like and would
00:01:57.300
it lend to recovery in the downtown core as well as economic recovery for the city and it would.
00:02:04.120
So you were championing this obviously for the for the economic impact and the and the opportunity
00:02:09.940
that it would bring to to the city so so a lot at stake with this deal you'd say?
00:02:15.480
Yeah completely a lot at stake with the deal you know I think that this council has lost sight of
00:02:20.720
what the overall benefits to building a new event centre would be. The event centre was always intended
00:02:25.540
to think about this in the context of overall economic recovery and overall downtown revitalization
00:02:30.380
so thinking about it not just as a standalone facility but how does an event centre work with
00:02:34.840
with the BMO expansion with the Arts Commons transformation with Greenline coming into the area
00:02:39.240
with the 70 plus million dollars that are being spent to revitalize Stampede Station and open up 17th Avenue
00:02:45.100
into the park. It was all intended to build a district and the district is really one of those
00:02:53.340
So with the handling of this deal what went wrong in your opinion?
00:02:58.860
You know I think it really doesn't come down to money quite frankly I think you know we we went through
00:03:03.420
this in 2021 where we knew that costs were going to rise inflation was going to become a significant factor
00:03:09.180
and we worked to address all of that within the confines of the original agreement we signed in 2019
00:03:13.980
and so all of that has been addressed. The challenge we have is that the yardstick got moved you know we
00:03:18.460
have a signed agreement and then all of a sudden costs started to escalate again and it was assumed that
00:03:22.860
those costs would be put on a partner. That's a challenge and what it does is it erodes trust when
00:03:28.060
you have a business arrangement with the private sector. So the the additional charges uh that were
00:03:35.580
sort of um getting added to the deal what were your thoughts on uh on some of the concerns some of
00:03:42.700
the um I I think it was the environmental uh decisions that were being made um for for the deal what
00:03:50.300
what were your thoughts there on some of the things being added and additional expenses there?
00:03:55.580
Well I think some of the challenges were I think there was some misinterpretation of what uh you
00:04:01.500
know some of the climate initiatives around the building were uh some of the things that we talked
00:04:05.660
about and always pre-prescribed in the agreements were things like flood mitigation uh making sure
00:04:10.700
that the right load factor is on the roof to handle a heavy snowfall those types of things um not in
00:04:15.980
terms of should we add solar panels to or not to a building and so when we think about it I think you
00:04:21.100
know what council really has to think through is the process by which uh they've tried to villainize
00:04:26.700
one single building with a climate initiative when uh you can't have a two-tiered policy you have to
00:04:32.460
start thinking about do we apply this now to the BMO expansion what does this look like for arts commons
00:04:37.660
all the way through to every other piece of civic infrastructure you're going to build you can't just
00:04:41.260
pick and choose one building to to make an example of. How would you have handled this differently Jeff?
00:04:47.900
Uh I I think it's a it I get asked that question all the time and it's a very simple answer I would
00:04:53.900
have honored the agreement that we have in place because I worked on that agreement uh we made sure
00:04:57.900
that we covered our bases on all of these things and frankly had a great deal to work together with
00:05:02.140
the private sector to fund a building which the city would get all its money back from. Right is it
00:05:07.820
salvageable in your opinion? Well I think that anytime you have two parties that have a common goal and I
00:05:15.020
think in this case we have Calgary Sport and Entertainment Corporation saying that Calgary has
00:05:19.180
always deserved a new event center uh we seemingly have a city council that still is in consideration
00:05:24.220
for a new event center I think that tells me that even though we've got a deal that has come to uh
00:05:30.620
come to closure uh there is a path forward if we can work together and bring everybody back to the
00:05:35.660
table and get folks talking again but it's really all going to be around can we build trust and do we have
00:05:40.700
the right people at the table that can put some rigor behind this project. Any specific uh recommendations
00:05:47.420
or advice you would want to give Mayor Gondek on this uh deal and on the situation that uh that we're
00:05:54.300
facing now? Uh not really I mean I think you know the mayor is well aware of uh of city building and has
00:06:01.980
obviously a background in that I think when it comes to projects like this it's about long-term vision
00:06:07.340
and sometimes reminding uh the council that you now sit with that it is about vision and it is about
00:06:13.420
achieving goals for all Calgarians and so you know one of the things we always knew about setting up the
00:06:18.540
event center was that even if a new council were to come in the goal was that it would at least give
00:06:23.900
you a first post to say okay well now we can really transform this area now we can actually enact a
00:06:28.780
vision rather than continually going back to square one which we've seen in the Victoria Park area for
00:06:33.900
over 30 years. Now I know that there has been some talk that this falls uh directly on Nenshi in some
00:06:44.620
way shape or form what are your thoughts there? Uh you know I completely disagree with the characterization
00:06:51.260
that this deal fell apart because of things Nenshi did uh quite frankly you know the Mayor and I have
00:06:55.980
had our ups and downs over the years but I will say that being at the table throughout the entire process
00:07:01.740
of putting this deal together uh both in 2019 and in 2021 uh former Mayor Manchi was instrumental in
00:07:07.980
ensuring that the deal was approved and got across the line and so to characterize him as being the
00:07:13.580
downfall of this I think he's just simply looking for a scapegoat that's not true.
00:07:19.260
Is there anyone you feel uh is sort of responsible for for this decision do you think there was for some
00:07:27.180
reason um I I wonder if there was a reason for this to have crumbled do you know what I mean like do you
00:07:38.140
think that there was a reason behind it or or just what are your thoughts there? Well to be quite honest I
00:07:45.100
think it's the trust factor right I think you know we had a signed agreement the the goalpost moved on
00:07:49.980
that agreement and that's a challenge and and people will draw their conclusions from there I think
00:07:53.820
everybody's looking for somebody to blame when a deal like this falls apart. The reality is is we
00:07:59.100
have to not look in the rearview mirror and we should look at paving the road ahead of us and so
00:08:03.100
how do we put this deal back together knowing that the benefits are significant for Calgarians
00:08:08.700
the benefits are there for downtown revitalization and overall economic recovery and those are the
00:08:13.420
things we should focus on moving forward with this new council. Yeah it definitely during the press
00:08:18.780
conference yesterday it sounded very um very much like premier Jason Kenney was sort of pointing
00:08:24.860
towards the city of Calgary for for um the deal sort of going belly up um would you say that's an
00:08:33.980
accurate he said he was um you know it was regrettable would you say that uh that the city really does need
00:08:41.820
to rethink its position on this? Well I think it is regrettable that the deal fell apart I do think
00:08:48.780
that you know both the city and CSEC need to figure out if there is a common goal that can be achieved
00:08:53.340
still and work towards that common goal uh if possible and so you know I don't choose to believe
00:08:58.540
that this deal is dead I choose to believe that we may have to forge a new path I think a lot of the
00:09:03.020
research and a lot of the justification as to why we would want to do this project has been done
00:09:07.020
frankly it's been done in depth over the past six years so we need to go back rethink all of those
00:09:12.060
things do they still apply uh do the benefits that this facility would bring still exist and then is
00:09:17.260
there a path forward to make that partnership work? And the benefits why don't you highlight a few in
00:09:22.140
your opinion uh again I know you championed for this your opinion what does this bring to Calgary?
00:09:27.580
What does this bring to our to our economy? Well you know the benefits in this case are vast right
00:09:33.660
there was a lot of work done to look at other jurisdictions to see where a new event center
00:09:37.820
coupled with building of a community could actually help revitalize a downtown and overall economic
00:09:43.100
recovery so those exist but there's key ties between building the event center and the new BMO
00:09:48.060
expansion and really developing that district all of that then ladders into overall downtown recovery
00:09:53.340
because it's really not about just the hockey deal in this it's about putting together a building
00:09:58.460
and a deal that the city owns the building we own the land we get all of our money back
00:10:03.660
but what it does is actually activates the district and encourages follow-on investment
00:10:08.620
and so thinking through all of those new opportunities all of those new businesses all
00:10:11.980
of those new things that would come to this district that's the win for Calgarians.
00:10:17.260
Right well let's hope that they are able to come back together at some point
00:10:23.740
and find some common ground because I do agree with you I see I see a lot of advantage for our city
00:10:30.620
you know even just to to help further put it on the map for events and and you know even CEOs of big
00:10:40.300
companies as Jason Kenney was saying you know trying to entice companies to come to Calgary I mean it's
00:10:46.140
it's good to show that the city is really championing for infrastructure and growth and and these kinds of facilities for sure.
00:10:55.820
Yeah it's it's one of those scenarios where you have to think about all of these things in the
00:11:00.540
context of working together you know to create the why people want to be here in Calgary not not the need
00:11:05.660
to be here right because nobody really needs to be anywhere anymore and so as we look at overall
00:11:10.220
economic recovery and try to bring new companies to Calgary thinking about all the benefits that
00:11:14.940
Calgary has that people want to be a part of some of the challenge I think a lot of jurisdictions have
00:11:19.340
faced is that when companies start to leave all of those season ticket holders leave as well and that
00:11:23.980
starts to erode your base for now programming in a lot of these events and and facilities and so
00:11:29.020
you have to think through it's not just about 44 hockey games a year it's about programming this
00:11:33.420
facility 250 to 300 days of the year with concerts that are currently going to places like Vancouver
00:11:39.420
and Edmonton and Franklin Saskatoon it's it's that type of community activation that you need if
00:11:44.060
you're going to be successful with putting an event center together.
00:11:46.540
So disappointed but still hopeful I'm assuming disappointed but still hopeful and I think you
00:11:56.380
know again where we have two parties that seemingly are talking about the same goal I think there's a
00:12:02.700
path to to hopefully putting things back together rebuilding trust and getting on with delivering the
00:12:07.980
facility that Calgarians have always desired for this area.
00:12:10.540
Well Jeff thanks for all the work you put into uh to bringing this to uh as far along as it has made it
00:12:18.380
and uh I guess here's hoping for the city that um that another deal can be can be brought together
00:12:24.620
thanks for sharing your thoughts with us today Jeff.