Ward 5’s Chad Collins says the city, due to its financial constraints, “is kind of stuck with the facilities we have right now.”
It’s a message repeated several times, in several ways, before councillors voted to receive a consultant’s report that has examined the cost of upgrading First Ontario Centre.
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Staff have been directed to continue managing the downtown arena’s life cycle renewal within funds that are included in the annual capital budget.
According to the report, it would cost $68 million to remodel the lower bowl and $252 million for a full-scale modernization of First Ontario Centre to big-league standards.
Ward 4 Coun. Sam Merulla suggests that such an investment will only happen through the private sector, stressing that “all we need is a cheque for $250 million and I’ll move the motion accordingly”.
Ward 6 Coun. Tom Jackson does acknowledge the need to fix the arena’s broken escalator and said, “The optics of that are horrible.”
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