Stadium Updates and Politicking.

[johnnybluenose]

Friends of Soccer

Hey Guys, if any of you want info and updates Bill Currie is right on top of everything going on with the stadium etc...

I have linked his blog above and here is his website for this stuff.

Support The Vancouver Whitecaps Stadium!

Bill has been really good with collecting info and organizing folks to ensure that proper pressure is put to the right folks politically etc...

If you want to get stuck into the issue at all he is a good resource.

I know linking away to other sites is sometimes frowned upon, but in this case I'm sure we can all agree that a new stadium for the Whitecaps is something we all want and the Local Soccer community desperately needs.

We all know the perception of the USL and the current Whitecaps by many an elite senior soccer player. That being said the MLS is a very real posibility, yet without a stadium it is a no go...

I am very jealous of what TFC has going, and what Montreal looks to have going, and yet the Caps look to have the club roots much deeper than either of those programs with the residency program, and such...

We are simply a stadium away from MLS and 25-30k showing up to watch the game in Vancouver on Grass, in the summer.

[italian_stallion21]

I heard Bobby saying on the radio that the city has OK'd it, they just have to squabble with the VPA over land value for a trade or something? Is that correct? It might say in the links but I'm at work so I try to stay off the net as much as possible. Except for TTP

[johnnybluenose]

From all the smoke surrounding the issue it sounds more or less like the Caps were given 4 or 5 hurdles they had to overcome from the city...and that they had addressed them all except the location had to be shifted a few hundred yards or something,

the last I heard from the Duz was that the VPA is looking at Kerfoot as a property developer and not a guy looking to give to the city (while hoping to make a profit, which nobody really can argue with)
Fact of the matter is the VPA owns the land, and I guess they shall do with it as they please.

I think this is all one big lesson in if you want to do things the right way it can't happen in our province or city. Look at all the scandals at the Provincial and Civic levels of politics...If you want to do something like this Sam Sullivan and the VPA President should have been made owners in the Whitecaps franchise, then this thing would have been built and games would have been played on the surface already...

Kerfoot, it appears, is unwilling to grease palms, and therefore this thing isn't going to go ahead.

If it's public money though it is really no bother (see new convention centre, bc place, etc etc etc...) yet as soon as a man who made a lot of money in this community wants to give back and provide another level of premier calibre sporting entertainment to our city, on HIS OWN BUCK, we tie it up in red tape never to be heard or seen from again.

Good for them on digging their heels in and fighting...I just wonder how long his(kerfoot) appetite for this will last.

[italian_stallion21]

Originally Posted by johnnybluenose

Good for them on digging their heels in and fighting...I just wonder how long his(kerfoot) appetite for this will last.

I just hope it does last.

[XXX]

Kerfoot has proposed a land swap with the VPA.... Why would the VPA go through with it unless it is financially benefically. They are run as a corporation trying to max. profits. They have no civic responsibilities. This issue hinges on community support. Kerfoot is hoping that the community will rally and demand this stadium. Don't be fooled though...this is not entirely Kerfoot trying to promote and advance soccer in the province. Its mostly dollars and cents. A waterfront stadium in downtown Vancouver...gold.

[johnnybluenose]

For sure it is Gold...but nobody else is trying to step up to do it, why not him!?

The city needs a Soccer Specific Stadium...in Vancouver Proper.

The guy desrves to make a buck or a few million...I wonder how much he has lost since he took over ownership of the Caps?

[italian_stallion21]

Originally Posted by johnnybluenose

For sure it is Gold...but nobody else is trying to step up to do it, why not him!?

The city needs a Soccer Specific Stadium...in Vancouver Proper.

The guy desrves to make a buck or a few million...I wonder how much he has lost since he took over ownership of the Caps?

Exactly. He's the guy shelling out his own money to build it, why shouldn't he make money? Better than the taxpayers paying for it and having the city turn it to garbage.

[XXX]

true...but the deal is not there. A land swap? Come on, something more concrete please that doesn't hinge on the local community throwing themselves behind it to find civic support. Perhaps a land sale and a subsequent land purchase would be the better path, but I bet the VPA property is considerably more valuable.

[johnnybluenose]

New Rumour circulating over at the Voyageurs board...

It seems that Kerfoot may be able to do a land swap to go back to the original plans of building at the Main and Terminal site again... And that the St Pauls hospital relocation may be off...

Interesting for sure...

If we can't have it at the waterfront I guess that site is as good as any other...It is Downtown, has the same access to Transit etc as GM and BC Place (Which isn't as good as the waterfront where they had WC Express, Skytrain, bus, Seabus etc)

Also another park there may help improve the area substantially.

[Dude]

I cringe every time I go to read one of these....

I think that would be great. I am however extremely doubtful we'll ever see this stadium built, even w/ Mr. Kerfoot's private money.

That would be a great location, and if they can incorporate some of the heritage building to it, it could be fabulous.

[Dude]

Originally Posted by XXX

Kerfoot has proposed a land swap with the VPA.... Why would the VPA go through with it unless it is financially benefically. They are run as a corporation trying to max. profits. They have no civic responsibilities. This issue hinges on community support. Kerfoot is hoping that the community will rally and demand this stadium. Don't be fooled though...this is not entirely Kerfoot trying to promote and advance soccer in the province. Its mostly dollars and cents. A waterfront stadium in downtown Vancouver...gold.

Jesus...why is "profit" such a bad word to many around here?

I am sick and tired of reading and listening to the socialists in this Province that will criticize a business man like Mr. Kerfoot for being profit driven.

What is the alternate? Donate the whole fcuking facility? Or, how about a better idea...let's ask the three levels of Government foot the whole tab. Give your head a shake. For example, on the surface I like the idea of BC place being renovated for a retractable roof.

That being said, I like a better idea of tendering out the sale of the land to private developers who, as part of their tender proposal, will allow for a new outdoor stadium w/ retractable roof, and give them free license for commercial development on that land.

This way the Province can PROFIT and divest themselves of the building itself, a depreciating asset.

And, guess what? We’d end up w/ a world class facility.

You know what though, this doesn’t make sense to all the socialist in this province who’d cry foul to the government for selling out another public facility to the private sector.

Can’t recall when the government last did a good job being involved in professional sports, but hey, let’s hang on to this massive, next to useless white elephant.

[BlazeArmy]

Dude,

you are a capitalist bastard!

[johnnybluenose]

Google Maps

Is this the site they are talking about? It definitely looks big enough...

If it is, i would love the exterior to look like the Pacific Central Station facade. Image:Pacific Central Dawn.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

would absolutely love to see a park that looked like the Valley...No need for a horseshoe if you are not on the waterfront.
The Valley (stadium) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Regs]

That's the area site I always thought they meant JBN.

[trece verde]

JBN:

The city also refers to this area as the Trillium parksite. It's been an on-again/off-again site for two artificial turf fields that the parks board has had their eyes on ever since the original tech park idea for the space went bust. It actually made it into the last capital plan that went from the parks board to city council (probably one of the few times that this politically polarized lot ever agreed on anything) only to have Mayor Sam table the whole thing in favour of lunch.

I hadn't known that this was also a potential stadium site, but I can't see the train station being co-opted for it. Neat idea to have it reflected as a building facade, though. Not that we actually have a local architectural style or anything...

Limbo is how we dance; it's also where projects like this seem to end up...

Trece

[Dude]

Originally Posted by BlazeArmy

Dude,

you are a capitalist bastard!

Yes.

Limbo is how we dance; it's also where projects like this seem to end up...

So true in this Province and city. How did we ever muster-up the political will to even think of the Olympics?

[XXX]

dude...my point was that the deal is not there. He's looking for the community's support to push a deal through. He needs to come back to the table when he has something more concrete. Its not going to get the green light in its current form. Trust me

[Dude]

OK I'll trust you.



(I assume this wink means you are in the know, and by winking back, I am now in the know. I feel so in the know now.)

Doesn't change the theme of my point, being, we have a guy in this city- a for-profit businessman- who wants to build a for-profit facility that is in huge demand by the general public.

If it is built by private money, good old supply and demand laws will rule the day on pass / failure.

The levels of red tape are infuriating, but moreso, the NIMBYist minority voices that get in the way.

[johnnybluenose]

What Deal? He owns the land. It's city's permitting that is stopping shovels from entering soil...

This whole debacle started when some pissed off slumlords that own land in the Gastown area found out Kerfoot had purchased land or rights to build on land that they did not know was for sale or available to be sold. The guys that own the building the Rug store is in, the building the Lamplighter is in etc..are owned by three cronies that created NIMBY's to block the project.

All of a sudden the chemicals and hazardous goods became an issue. The same chemicals and hazardous goods that were going to burn and boil us soccer spectators to death from the trains below are the same cartage that run under the T&CC and Fairmont.

All of a sudden the bums and downtrodden were going to have to deal with 30000 drunk soccer hooligans

All of a sudden the noise etc "Late at night" was going to disturb the neighbors that live really close to the Purple Onion, Sonar, and the Blarney Stone, where loud drunken rowdies spill onto the street at 3am four nights a week.

A whole load of crap.

The City gave their road blocks. Lenarduzzi and Kerfoot addressed the roadblocks, but now have to wait on the VPA, which views everyone as an enemy (including the companies that lease land off of them (Sask Wheat/Viterra, DP World, Vanterm, Etc) they hold people and businesses hostage)

At the end of the day the VPA will probably not allow Kerfoot the land swap, unless someone(s) has/have their palms greased...at least that is the way I read it from a distance, albeit a fairly informed distance.

I commend Kerfoot for having the staying power through this whole thing. The beaureacrats/NIMBY's/sleezeball slumlords/LeftWinger Civic and Provincial bleeding hearts/ have probably killed any shot that we have at an MLS franchise...

We can only hope they can pull this thing out of the fire...

[Regs]

Anyone spare a Loonie?

24 Hours Vancouver

Doesn't look promising does it?