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.
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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