HAMILTON – The Hamilton stadium project is on life support and the future of the city’s Canadian Football League team is in doubt.
During an emergency city council meeting on Wednesday, councillors voted down a pair of potential sites. It was decided that the site currently under investigation – located on Canadian Pacific Railway land in the city’s west end – will cost too much to develop.
Mayor Bob Bratina, who took office earlier this month, put forward a motion asking city staff to investigate Confederation Park as a potential stadium site, but the motion was defeated 9-6.
The new stadium, which will be used as a soccer venue during the 2015 Pan-Am Games, was supposed to become the future home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Ticats owner Bob Young has suggested he will need to move the franchise if a new facility – to replace the aging Ivor Wynne Stadium – is not built in the city in the next few years.
"I think the meeting spoke for itself in terms of the dysfunctionality of this whole process," said Ticats president Scott Mitchell. "I think the process has pretty much run its course.
"I’m going to talk with Bob and with the management team and look at what this means for the future of the Tiger-Cats."
The 2015 Pan-Am Games organizing committee has set Feb. 1, 2011 as the deadline for Hamilton to put forward a stadium plan.
"I don’t think it’s dead, because we haven’t declared it formally dead," said Bratina. "It’s certainly difficult, the patient is very sick, but there’s still some time to go before Feb. 1 and you never know, I suppose, with this council and the way the whole issue has gone. But, it’s certainly hard to believe that people would not be willing to simply receive information that staff says they are willing and able to present."
Earlier this week, the Pan-Am Games organizing committee announced Brampton, Markham and Mississauga had expressed an interest in hosting the stadium if the Hamilton project fell through.
Hamilton city council will meet again on Jan. 12 and there is one final motion on the table to look at the West Harbour downtown location. However, the Ticats have said they will never play in West Harbour.
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