The City of Edmonton has reviewed options for the Northlands Coliseum and appears to favour Hockey Canada’s pitch for the facility.
A report posted Thursday suggested council consider working with Hockey Canada to develop a draft memorandum of understanding, including a capital and operating model and come back to council with details on May 30.
“I’m really glad we heard not just from Hockey Canada, but from 15 different organizations around the city who are interested in being part of a repurpose of the Coliseum,” Mayor Don Iveson said. “The most encouraging is and remains Hockey Canada because they can bring real institutional heft to the table, potential sponsors and partners over time.”
Administration also recommended the city work with Northlands to “negotiate a partial surrender of the Master Agreement and Site Lease transferring control and ownership of the Coliseum and any necessary supporting infrastructure to the city, including a transition plan.”
The report said consent would need to be obtained from the Edmonton Arena Corporation for the “repurposing of the Coliseum by the city into a hockey academy and multi-plex arena in partnership from Hockey Canada.”
READ MORE: City of Edmonton seeks public input on future of Northlands Coliseum
Iveson said Northlands continues to do good work for the city with several events, including curling and rodeo.
“But there’s a ticking clock and you need a repurpose plan or you need an exit strategy.
“I still think there’s a lot of love for the idea of a repurpose around amateur sports with ice as one of the principle uses. I think Northlands — it was actually their idea — to look at this repurpose, so I don’t think it’s incompatible at all,” Iveson said.
The mayor said the next step would be coming up with a design and business plan which would include a price tag.
In the report, city administration said consultations with citizens and other groups had been done over the past six months. Various partnerships with several organizations were explored in order to understand community needs and interest, the report said.
“A number of inputs have been used to support the repurposing, including the alignment with city policies and plans, public consultation, partner interest, assessment of emerging needs, current demand capacity, functionality and physical condition of existing facilities,” the report reads.
“Northlands has a role to play if they are able to restructure into a position of financial sustainability,” Iveson said. “As we have seen from the reports they have modelled before today they are not on a path for financial sustainability but that’s why council gave debt relief so that they could plan and come up with a new approach to financial sustainability.”
The city completed a Partner Interest Exploration process on possibilities to transform the Coliseum into a multiplex arena. It said 15 organizations expressed interest and outlined their ideas, how the ideas met an identified community need/benefit, and the capacity of the organization to contribute by investing capital, becoming an operating partner, and/or providing programming and/or services.
READ MORE: New $165M vision for Northlands includes 7-sheet ice facility, outdoor concert space
After reviewing the responses, administration met with four of the 15 respondents whose ideas most closely aligned with the public’s vision.
Meetings were held with Hockey Canada, Athletics Alberta, the Greater Edmonton Lacrosse Council and Edmonton Northlands.
City administration believes “that of all the potential partners expressing interest, the concept presented by Hockey Canada provides the greatest likelihood of success based on the potential partnerships leveraged by the Hockey Canada organization, the ability to include other athletic programming space sought by other potential partners, and the ability to create a national-level hockey academy in Edmonton.”
In a letter to Iveson, the president of Hockey Canada reiterated the group’s interest in the Coliseum site as a sports academy and sports performance centre.
READ MORE: Northlands Vision 2020 doing too much with too little: City of Edmonton
Tom Renney said Hockey Canada’s mandate is to grow the game of hockey and get more people playing, coaching and supporting the sport. He said the organization has reached out to many stakeholders in Edmonton and across the province, including Hockey Edmonton and Edmonton Public School Board.
“Based on those conversations, it seems clear that a newly developed sports performance centre on the Coliseum site would serve the needs of many constituents.
“I believe there is a shared vision for a facility that would be comprised of four ice surfaces, a multi-sport court area, a running track, and an area dedicated to off-ice high-performance training. The collection of these facilities will provide the foundation for a world-class sport performance centre for youth and high-performance athletes alike,” Renney said.
“With a facility of this nature, coupled with classrooms, lecture halls, a theatre, research and technology, medical and training areas, along with several other sport ancillary services, Edmonton has the potential to be on the leading edge worldwide of sport-academy training programs.”
Hockey Canada letter re: Edmonton Coliseum by Anonymous TdomnV9OD4 on Scribd
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