jstewismybastardson
Lord Shitlord aka El cibernauta
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Icymi on twitter the past week ... rumour has started again that Aquilinis want to sell the team but not the arena gets some actual print time ... from pj in the province
THAT BOLDED NEW ARENA OPTION THOUGH
What the actual response has been isn’t certain, but the impression you get from talking to people who would know is that it’s never been a flat “no” — there might be a willingness to sell the team, but not the arena.
In non-COVID times, the arena prints money. The team has printed money in the past, but hasn’t lately. So you can appreciate why they’d be willing to at least contemplate moving on from the one item in their stable that’s been a financial drain at times.
But as it’s understood, no one is interested in buying just the team. Who wants to be a tenant? Ask the Whitecaps about the challenges such an arrangement presents for revenue growth.
Still, it’s an intriguing what if: like what if the Aquilinis became interested in the pure land value of where the arena sits? There’s long been an understanding that there are plans to build one, maybe two more towers around the existing arena.
One day, the viaducts are coming down and that will also boost the value of the land.
If there’s no hockey team playing at the arena, does it have less appeal?
No hockey team? What do you mean?
As someone who is smart and knows the local scene told me a while back: you could build an arena somewhere else in Metro Vancouver.
“There are spots,” they insisted.
And so I checked with other people I know who are in the development game. The general sense is that the current location remains the place to be: it’s on the doorstep of a lot of well-heeled people who are willing to walk. It’s well-connected to transit.
It’s an easy place to get to and that’s the 25-year-old brilliance of it. (Remember when I wrote about this last fall?)
But if you were to contemplate it, a few spots pop up that have good transit connections among other things:
• the area around Scott Road station in Whalley
• there are spaces around Burnaby Lake, just off the Millennium Line
• Coal Harbour/the waterfront east of there. Former Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths originally considered building over the CP yards, where Greg Kerfoot also once contemplated a soccer stadium, but it was too complicated.
• the city-owned lands around the CN yards on the south side of False Creek flats, behind Emily Carr University and near where the Millennium Line extension will pass through.
All this said, the Canucks, of course, are involved in the redevelopment of the Plaza of Nations and have plans to build a practice facility there, across from Rogers, that will serve mostly as a community centre.
And there’s little reason to think they’d contemplate tearing down their own arena as long as it’s in as good shape as it is.
THAT BOLDED NEW ARENA OPTION THOUGH
A new arena?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people have called from time to time, wondering if the Canucks are for sale.What the actual response has been isn’t certain, but the impression you get from talking to people who would know is that it’s never been a flat “no” — there might be a willingness to sell the team, but not the arena.
In non-COVID times, the arena prints money. The team has printed money in the past, but hasn’t lately. So you can appreciate why they’d be willing to at least contemplate moving on from the one item in their stable that’s been a financial drain at times.
But as it’s understood, no one is interested in buying just the team. Who wants to be a tenant? Ask the Whitecaps about the challenges such an arrangement presents for revenue growth.
Still, it’s an intriguing what if: like what if the Aquilinis became interested in the pure land value of where the arena sits? There’s long been an understanding that there are plans to build one, maybe two more towers around the existing arena.
One day, the viaducts are coming down and that will also boost the value of the land.
If there’s no hockey team playing at the arena, does it have less appeal?
No hockey team? What do you mean?
As someone who is smart and knows the local scene told me a while back: you could build an arena somewhere else in Metro Vancouver.
“There are spots,” they insisted.
And so I checked with other people I know who are in the development game. The general sense is that the current location remains the place to be: it’s on the doorstep of a lot of well-heeled people who are willing to walk. It’s well-connected to transit.
It’s an easy place to get to and that’s the 25-year-old brilliance of it. (Remember when I wrote about this last fall?)
But if you were to contemplate it, a few spots pop up that have good transit connections among other things:
• the area around Scott Road station in Whalley
• there are spaces around Burnaby Lake, just off the Millennium Line
• Coal Harbour/the waterfront east of there. Former Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths originally considered building over the CP yards, where Greg Kerfoot also once contemplated a soccer stadium, but it was too complicated.
• the city-owned lands around the CN yards on the south side of False Creek flats, behind Emily Carr University and near where the Millennium Line extension will pass through.
All this said, the Canucks, of course, are involved in the redevelopment of the Plaza of Nations and have plans to build a practice facility there, across from Rogers, that will serve mostly as a community centre.
And there’s little reason to think they’d contemplate tearing down their own arena as long as it’s in as good shape as it is.
