Scott Taylor on the new stadium

heck its still on their website

"
Major overhauls, improvements and renovations have turned this once simple football stadium into a multi-purpose venue with 30,000 permanent seats, and the conversion capability to increase seating to 50,000+, making it the optimum host for a wide variety of events. In 2006 alone, improvements to the stadium bowl included a state of the art sound system as well as ultra modern production enhancements to the Jumbotron. Improved signage throughout the facility, and extensive painting and renovations to the concourse area and meeting spaces enhance the overall experience."

so an extra $45 mill will turn it from a "multi-purpose venue" to a......?

Ultra-multi-purpose venue?

The sound system can be moved to the new stadium to save bucks. The current stadium is not good. Seating is extremely cramped and uncomfortable. Concourse areas are primitive. I would like to see it replaced, but agree with previous comments that we should do it right or not at all. Don't sell us on prime rib and deliver a hamburger.

That's what we'll be getting it appears....a "college-type" field for an NFL price.

"Seating is extremely cramped and uncomfortable"

and the MTS Cetre is 10 times worse...

Deank wrote:"Seating is extremely cramped and uncomfortable"

and the MTS Cetre is 10 times worse...

NO way the stadium is Wayyyyy worse! My knees touch the seat in front of me at the stadium. They do not do that at the MTS center.

my knees touch the front at the MTS centre and i have to sit hunched over because two adults can not both sit back and have enough room without hugging each other.

MTS Centre is not great, but it's definitely better than the stadium. Plus you get cup holders. Canwest Global Park is the gold standard. If I can watch a football game in that kind of comfort I would be a happy camper. Or at least not as grumpy when the Bombers get their asses kicked.

Deank wrote:my knees touch the front at the MTS centre and i have to sit hunched over because two adults can not both sit back and have enough room without hugging each other.

And yet it is still the third busiest venue in Canada, or is it North America?

North America

cherenkov wrote:
Canwest Global Park is the gold standard.

Not in my books. Some seats will give you a stiff neck for weeks.

yeah but isn;t that just because of where they are located... and in all ball parks the same place seat will be just as bad?

Its hard to watch a ball game from any seat when you have you head turned on a 45 degree angle the whole game.

Deank wrote:Its hard to watch a ball game from any seat when you have you head turned on a 45 degree angle the whole game.

Another reason why a new stadium will be better. From what I remember about the drawing, it will be more of a bowl design, so sight-lines from the corners should be better. ... unless this is one of the enhancements that is on the chopping block due to rising construction costs. I can see it now: 64 rows of wooden benches...

CanWest Stadium is the gold standard when it comes to concessions. As for seating, the MTS Centre seats are indeed very cramped. The seats I have at the football stadium are relatively comfortable. I've only attended two games at the baseball park and I frankly don't recall them as being cramped.

Where the football stadium fails is in the concessions and especially in the washrooms. Both are disgraceful and embarrassing. The Washrooms are also nasty. I recall reading somewhere that the upper deck washrooms cannot be improved due to a lack of water pressure. To fix that requires a full plumbing upgrade at "street level".

We do need a new stadium. I'd say any fifty year old building that was built ad hoc the way ours was, and how truly little has been done in developing creature comforts needs to be replaced. Making repairs today is much akin to pitting lipstick on a pig.

Deank wrote:North America

Then they must have done something right, eh?

It's not so much the stadium itself per se that attracts so many peeps. It's the events and subsequent reviews by Triniman that does it.

.. and lack of similar venue to compete for concerts, etc ...

exactly
Winnipeg is dead centre(ish) in North America, almost every music event is virtually gaurenteed a sell out. The building was designed to take into account the rapid set up and tear down of concerts ( they did that much right). We are easy to get to, in fact mostly in the way of wherever else a band is going. When it comes to other venues that are not music related again.. its what we have so people use it.

That does not make the seats comfortable.

The new stadium plan was a bit of a scam to begin with. There were no real construction costs, just some crap in a presentation. And development of the Polo Park site was part of it even though the economic downturn was already getting well-underway so that was in no way a done deal. It's fine to have that as part of the conditions but there's no point in announcing that there's going to be a new stadium built until the conditions are actually met. They should have kept tendering offers until someone put forward a proposal with no outstanding conditions like this. Asper could have used that time to secure tenants for the new development and could have gone through with this exact deal if he had them before anyone else put a better offer forward.

yeah but Asper has been given the freedom to do and offer whatever he pleases and change his offer as many times as he wants without having to go back to the bomber board for approval or allowing anyone else in on the deal.

It should have been

Bombers approach all levels of government, get what they can if anything.
Put that on the table and say... offers?

Not a scam...

Architect has been chosen
Structural Engineer has been chosen
Mechanical and Electrical Engineer has been chosen
Landscape Architect has been chosen
Civil & Site Architect has been chosen
Project Manager has been chosen
Construction Manager has been chosen

Design underway. Working drawings expected in the fall.

yeah but how do you come up with a cost without these two already being complete?
Landscape Architect has been chosen
Civil & Site Architect has been chosen

The stadium will move forward! I emailed Asper on behalf of the Sandbox and G.O.M. and confirmed that GOM would lease all unleased space, with MizP and JTF signing as guarantors!
It is so easy to arrange things in Winnipeg!

Here is how these things are often done: select experts in their fields; define scope of project; obtain cost estimates; redefine; fine tune estimates; slice and dice; rejig estimates; create budget.

Then put job out for tender. Issue contract if tender comes in on budget. Revise if over budget, or cancel project or revise budget.

The overall project idea wasn't a complete scam, just making the agreement at the time. I assume the project team would have needed to have been listed in the proposal as is often the case with any government funding. But that's different from actually having a team working together.

The crazy thing about this one is that there were actually other proposals for the stadium being put forward. They could have had some crazy conditions as well but there isn't much point signing up to one of the proposals and locking out every other option until it's actually ready to go ahead. This was handled about as good as the waterpark was. Maybe we could have done both if Leo's combined offer was actually realistic. But there's a good chance it wasn't either.

grumpy old man wrote:Here is how these things are often done: select experts in their fields; define scope of project; obtain cost estimates; redefine; fine tune estimates; slice and dice; rejig estimates; create budget.

Then put job out for tender. Issue contract if tender comes in on budget. Revise if over budget, or cancel project or revise budget.

But that is not what they did

They napkinned some plans.. came up with a ball park budget, got the government to agree to that budget... told the public how wonderful it was and then started to plan it and are now saying that they may have to change it.

That is NOT a valid response to a RFP.