Talks about a new events center in Calgary are “moving along quite well,” according to the city council chairman.

But few other details were released to the public after a two-hour presentation by CAA Icon, the city’s business structure advisors.

In October 2022, the City of Calgary announced that the management consulting firm was entering a new round of talks with Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) after the previous contract expired in late 2021.

Monday was the first meeting of the new year to hear from the administration and negotiators.

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“What we’re really looking for is making sure we have good governance, we’re on the kind of progressive schedule that we’re hoping to be on,” committee chair Sonya Sharp told reporters. “We always talk about it, you know, time is of the essence.”

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“We are working with cost increases. The earlier projects are done, the better when it comes to time and money,” she said. “As such, we will be as aggressive as possible with our schedule to achieve a successful conclusion.”

Another thing both sides of the negotiations are likely to have on their minds is the lending landscape, according to an economics professor.

1:56 The City of Calgary is entering formal discussions on a new event center project

“Interest rates are now at 25-year highs. The Bank of Canada says they will hit the pause button here for a while, but the reality is I don’t see rates going down any time soon,” said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University. “So if they make a deal here, they’re going to fund it at the highest rates in a generation.”

Sharp described the talks, which began in the fall, as a “fresh start” and the project’s goal of building an events center in the city’s downtown area. As before, several alternatives will be presented to the city council.

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“I would say that all viable options are presented to the Council,” Sharp said.

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Lander suspects the trust between the city and the Calgary Flames ownership group is probably the biggest stumbling block.

“This shouldn’t take more than a year if the parties are interested in dealing legitimately,” the Concordia professor said. “I think the trust has been broken so badly that they have to call this a fresh start to try and build trust.

“The reality is they are not reinventing the wheel. You know the Saddledome needs to be replaced. A limited number of land options are available. There is a limited number of funding options.

“So it’s not like they’re reimagining what they want to do. They know exactly what to do. You just have to close those little divisions that ripped up the deal last year.”

3:08 PM Danielle Smith says now is the time to start the Calgary Event Center project

Lander, whose expertise spans the economics of sports, gaming and gambling, said the Flames’ performance on the ice could influence team feelings when it comes to funding a new arena.

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“That’s important when you go into town and you end up saying to the taxpayer, ‘We need $300 million, $400 million, $500 million from you,’ and that $300 million, $400 million, $500 million means, that more letters being written will disappear on neighborhood signs because we can’t afford to replace them,” Lander said.

“Eventually the city will say, ‘Then give us the Stanley Cup, give us a Stanley Cup appearance, give us a little past the first round or lose at the Battle of Alberta.’”

The Calgary NHL team sits in the bottom half of the Western Division rankings and would narrowly miss out on a wild card playoff berth if the playoffs started today.

“And so the on-ice performance in this case is important to win public opinion,” Lander said.

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The week after the “restart” was announced, Premier Danielle Smith appointed Calgary-Hay’s MLA Ric McIver to represent the province at the talks at the convention center.

Sharp said the city’s negotiators had held an initial meeting with the prime minister’s office, and the Calgary City Council expressed delight at the province’s support for the project.

“Our business structure advisers will likely have further discussions with the province in due course,” Ward 1 Councilman said. “It’s good to have everyone on the same page as we move through this journey.”

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The prime minister’s office declined to comment, instead saying the province would wait “until the parties involved have anything to report”.

The next meeting of the City Event Center Committee is scheduled for next month.

–with files from Adam MacVicar, Global News

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Source: globalnews.ca