Arena talks

Limited parking and no opportunities to expand makes downtown Port Arthur a poor choice for the proposed multiplex arena, many people said during a public meeting Wednesday evening.

Officials with the City of Thunder Bay held the first of two public consultations on the proposed $80 million multiplex arena. About 100 people attended the first meeting at the DaVinci Centre. City council wanted input on possible locations and business models for the proposed multipurpose centre.

Cutting down on the list of potential sites will give the city a chance to submit a preliminary grant application to Public Private Partnerships Canada by June 30. The current site list includes the Water Street bus terminal, Innova Park, Pool 6, Port Arthur Arena and a piece of property owned by the Thunder Bay International Airports Authority.

Frank Andricciola wanted to learn more about the city’s proposal and what it might do with a multi-use facility. He said Thunder Bay was ready to have a multiplex arena because if the population of the city increases than it would be well put to use.

But wherever the arena goes, Andricciola said he doesn’t want in the Port Arthur downtown core.

"I would like it probably in Innova Park or the Pool 6 site," Andricciola said. "The downtown core is too small and there’s absolutely no parking and there’s no room to expand if they had to expand. To me that would be a waste of time and money."

Bill Vass, a former manager at the Fort William Gardens, said he wanted to better understand the process the city was going through in picking a site. With the For William Gardens now 60-years-old, Vass admits that it’s time to look for a new venue.

The biggest disadvantage against the Fort William Gardens is that it’s difficult for staff to load gear in for a concert when there are two major roads to deal with, he said.

"It’s time to start looking and I applaud the city for starting the process," he said. "I think it’s time to start looking at replacing the Gardens. Its 60-years-old and it’s time we started looking at replacing the building."

If the city were to build the multiplex, he said he would prefer the arena be closer to major bus routes and have plenty of space for new patrons.

Frank Strnad has attended a couple of meetings on the proposed multiplex. He said an arena was necessary because eventually the Fort William Gardens wouldn’t be enough to accommodate larger crowds. But despite the need, he cautioned that the city needed to balance its needs against the reality of cost.

"We have to look at what we can afford right now because of the large debt the city had right now," Strnad said. "Look at what we can afford right now."

If an arena was going to go anywhere he would like it to go in the Pool 6 site, he said.

Another man attending the meeting, who did give his name to tbnewswatch.com, said it was an important facility for Thunder Bay and the city shouldn’t make the mistake of putting it downtown.

"There’s limited parking, no room for expansion and it’s not accessible conveniently whereas Innova Park has all of that," he said. "To me there’s no other question of where it should go."

City manager Tim Commisso said if the arena didn’t bring in new money, than it wasn’t worth the city’s time to invest in to the project and once built it should become a place of community pride.

He said the reaction from the public consultations last year was that they would support the project as long as it didn’t raise taxes, had a sound financial plan and was sustainable.

“This is a project that we want public input on," Commisso said.

He added the $25 million ReNew Thunder Bay commitment gave the city a head start on the project.

A report presented to city council on Tuesday, based on today’s dollar figures, shows that the 240,000 square foot facility, including a 50,000-sqaure foot convention centre, could generate $5 million in revenue each year with a $3.5 million operating expense.

The estimated base cost of the arena is $63 million with another $11 million required for a convention centre and $6 million for site infrastructure.

The next public consultation will take place at the Italian Cultural Centre at 6:30 to 9 p.m. on Thursday.