A class at Lakehead University is trying to gauge public interest in the proposed event centre.
Students in Mike Yuan's tourism economics class have developed a survey of more than 20 questions in an effort to get unbiased results about everything from how much public support is out there, how much people are willing to pay for it and where they'd like it built.
Around 60 of a hopeful 300 have taken the survey so far but student Steven Anderson said so far it looks like the public wants an event centre.
"Essentially what we've found it people are willing to pay slightly more taxes for the multiplex as well as support for the multiplex is there," he said.
Yuan agreed.
"Overall i think that it's surprising how much support there is," he said.
Yuan wanted his students to tackle a real-life issue in the city without bias in order to get a true sense of public sentiment.
"That means we don't want outside influence to judge or colour how we interpret and design the study," he said.
As for the results, Yuan said the class can't be responsible for how the data is used once the survey wraps up April. But he's hoping it helps as part of the process.
"Public participation is critical to the planning process," he said.
The survey can be found here.
