EDMONTON – Will the downtown arena come in at or below its Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP)? That’s the $480 million question the City of Edmonton is waiting to have answered.
When the final funding model was passed by City Council last year, the price tag for the arena was set at $480 million. While the latest report, being presented to City Council next Wednesday, doesn’t outline specific funding details, the City says things are looking good.
“All indications are that we’re on target, yep,” said City Manager Simon Farbrother.
READ MORE: Edmonton city council approves final arena funding model
That’s welcome news to Ward 10 Councillor, Michaels Walters, who campaigned “on the notion that we would keep this on target.”
“The Guaranteed Maximum Price was an important component. And I’m going to do everything I can to keep it there,” he said Thursday. “I don’t even want to think about going over.”
But the GMP isn’t the only thing councillors will be looking at. Ward 7 Councillor, Tony Caterina, says he wants to make sure they’re getting what they signed off on last May.
“$480 (million) for everything that we said we were going to get is one thing. $480 (million) for a reduction in what we thought we were going to get, that’s another thing,” said Caterina, who voted against the final funding model.
Another concern being raised by councillors is the fact some of the funding sources have yet to be confirmed. The City still has to apply for a provincial grant for $25 million. And two-thirds of the funding for the community rink has yet to come through.
“Clearly we’ve concerned about those little gaps and we have to fill those, so I’m anxious to get those things filled,” Walters said.
“All conditions are equal. If they’re met, fine. If they’re not met, that’s a different question on whether we proceed or not,” Caterina added.
But despite those gaps, Farbrother says as long as the GMP is met, construction on the arena will begin — as scheduled — in March.
“The City does lots of projects that are in the multi-millions of dollars and there’s times when we do start some of those when we’ve got more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to fill,” he said.
“We’re very, very close to the end and having a shovel in the ground and, celebrating a couple of years from now, a great building.”
The City is expected to receive the GMP sometime next week. Once the number is verified it will be made public, which will likely come at the beginning of February.
With files from Vinesh Pratap, Global News.
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