The head of the group tasked with renovating Hamilton’s FirstOntario Centre says he anticipates construction will start towards the tail end of 2023.
PJ Mercanti, CEO of Carmen’s Group and president of the Hamilton Urban Precinct Entertainment Group (HUPEG) told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton that the consortium is in the final stages of negotiations with partners and says the arena will close after a Cirque du Soleil show in mid-December.
He expects renovations will be completed between 16 to 20 months after that.
So far, there’s been little movement on construction since the group does not yet have building permits from the city of Hamilton.
“We’re meeting with the city and working through a process with them,” Mercanti explained.
“We’re pleased with the progress that we’re making, and in the next little while, we will be meeting with their permit and planning department to talk about the renovation.”
The Cirque de Soleil show joins a Grey Cup festival in November as events that have staggered the start date of a multi-million dollar redevelopment.
Initially the group ball-parked a start date sometime in June or July of 2023 with an estimated completion sometime in 2025.
The plan changed somewhat last summer with cost revisions anticipating a development ranging between $ 80 million to $ 200 million when sports magnate Tim Leiweke and his Oak View Group (OVG) becoming involved.
FirstOntario’s renovation has already resulted in a pair of Hamilton’s major sports teams, the OHL’s Bulldogs and CEBL’s Honey Badgers, relocating to Brantford and Brampton respectively.
Mercanti previously told Global News the “expanded scope” of the renovation, which entails an overall larger-scale development, made it “impossible” for the tenants to play through construction.
He says so far HUPEG has signed “the master deal” with the city and are “knee deep” in negotiations with OVG.
“Right now it’s fine tuning legal documents and language in those documents that are satisfactory to all parties,” Mercanti said.
“We’ve been at this for a long time, we’re yards away from being able to formalize items related to this.”
Prospective partners OVG recently completed a similar project, CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore, reopening in February 2023 after a six-month renovation.
Mercanti hopes the Hamilton project will have comparable construction speed since the same architects, BBB/SCI , are also working on York Boulevard redevelopment.
“They completed an arena renovation study back in 2016, a very substantial study that is the foundation for a lot of what we plan on doing,” said Mercanti.
“A lot of great groundwork has been laid already through that study and through BBB’s engagement with this project over many years.”
The City of Hamilton’s general manager Jason Thorne told councillors Wednesday that attempts would be made to expedite a staff report on the master development agreements.
It’s anticipated a progress update on the downtown development will be before council sometime in June.