Why The Big Ticket On Lansdowne Arena? THE VOTER

11/16/2023

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Maybe the city is trying to avoid the embarrassment of cost overruns at Lansdowne such as we have witnessed with LRT and most other large projects.

The city estimates the cost of the new Lansdowne event centre at between $250 million to $300 million. That’s much higher than a similar structure in Gatineau that was built for $80 million.

If you vastly inflate the cost in the first place, when construction prices creep up, as they inevitably will, you already have a cushion built in to your financing model. They’ve definitely given themselves a generous amount of wiggle room.

Do The Math On Lansdowne Event Centre

It could also be that they’ve put in there some items that they can cut when they need to show how fiscally responsible they are when the price hikes surface.

On the other hand, maybe the costs are high to accommodate a deluxe facility with gold fixtures in the change rooms and thickly padded seats on the players’ benches.

It may even be a combination of all of those. Who knows with the funky New Math they use at the city.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

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