Saputo Stadium expansion delayed

MONTREAL – The Montreal Impact wants to be fiscally responsible with $23 million of public money, and that’s why the major upgrade to Saputo Stadium will be delayed until September.

Team president Joey Saputo and vice-president Richard Legendre, responsible for the stadium, met the media prior to Sunday’s North American Soccer League game against the Atlanta Silverbacks to announce a second call for bids concerning technical specifications for infrastructure will proceed next month after what was deemed "unsatisfying results" with initial proposed bids.

"The cost was globally too high," said Saputo. "It is not a question for us to exceed the total public money awarded (by the Quebec government) for the expansion project.

"We have worked hard over the last few weeks with the different people involved to find solutions to expand our stadium to 20,000 seats, under a roof, while respecting the initial budget," he said.

With the Impact set to join Major League Soccer in 2012, the upgrade of the stadium consists of increasing seating capacity to 20,341 from 13,034, constructing a roof over the upper rows of the grandstands to cover approximately one-third of the seats, and the addition of 24 corporate loges for a total of 40.

Work was expected to start this summer after a May call for tenders and completion of the expansion had been set for March in time for the Impact to make its debut as the 19th team in MLS and third Canadian team behind Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC.

Under the new timetable, it won’t be until the beginning of next summer before all is ready and the result is the Impact will start the MSL season, which begins in mid-March, indoor at Olympic Stadium.

"We had the option to start the season on the road or to look for an alternative," said Saputo. "We prefer to play a few matches at Olympic Stadium. We want all games to be an event, especially our opening game in MLS in Montreal."

Legendre is confident the new call for bids will respect the budget and stadium the upgrade will be completed as planned, "but not at the price we saw in the first round of bids."

He agreed the delay was in keeping with the franchise’s history of conducting proper and complete due diligence.

"It is crucial for us to respect the budget," Legendre said. "It’s $23 million of public money and from the very beginning we said respecting the budget was an absolute priority.

"We want to have a good product and for us a good product is having the number of seats and the roof all around and sometimes we have go at it again to look at things differently," he said. "We say necessity is the mother of invention, so in the last few weeks we’ve looked at things differently to get to the same result, but not at the same price."

The club confirmed season ticket holders will receive preferential treatment with respect to seating for games held at Olympic Stadium.