CheersMan

That’s a bit presumptuous. For those of you who want to be educated on the debate and read the facts, I invite you to visit CalgaryNext web site. After you read the information, and if you like the idea, enter your name as a supporter of the project on the front page. http://calgarynext.com/index.php

I'm sure the city would have a large say in the final physical appearance of any proposal.

Yup. The sheet piling is free, the excavation is free (because your doing it anyway for the arena), you just need to find a place to haul and remediate the contamination.

Baby steps, a proposal like that is extremely complicated to put together, especially in an ever changing landscape. Lets not get hung up on how we got here (which by the way I think has been very professional to date), lets rejoice that someone has offered a vision to solve 4 HUGE problems with one fell swoop at the lowest possible price. Let’s look to the future instead of the past. The Flames have estimated that the cost saving would be $310M if all 3 lumped into one (CalgaryNext). The Flames have offered to toss in $200M as well. That is a savings of an estimated ½ Billion dollars for the tax payer. I’m thinking the quality of a stand alone field house would not be near the quality as one incorporated into CalgaryNext. The Flames have not said what if anything they would contribute to a stand alone arena. It certainly wouldn’t be near $200M considering they still need to build a stadium. There is no better time to clean up this site imo. A gigantic hole will be dug in the ground for a new arena, why not dig the hole where remediation is required, hence even more cost savings towards the clean up.

Correct. With the oldest usually comes the least amenities and functionality which was the intent of that statement. It wasn’t that long ago when the boys used to stand around a trough in the men’s room to take a leak at our stadium. The occasional Pee fight would break out.

He is only stating the obvious in a very gentle manner. We have the oldest stadium in the County. We have the oldest arena on the Continent. Its time for smart people to start figuring this out. It’s time to stop hookinging and complaining, its GO TIME!

I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. Here is what he said. "There would be no threat to move, we would just move, and it would be over. And I'm trying my level best to make sure that day never comes frankly," King said during an interview on Sportsnet Fan 590 in Toronto on Wednesday. "If people smarter than us in more powerful positions than ours don't feel that we're a critical piece of the social, economic and cultural part of our city then who are we to argue with that?" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ken-king-calgary-flames-arena-next-1.4050989

Imagine that sheet pile wall cut off just below the top of river bank, then covered on the outside with sloped Rip-Rap similar to where the two men are standing, you wouldn't even know the sheet wall was there. I just choose that pic to show this type of cut-off wall can be used at waters edge. As you say, pipeline failures happen all the time, often in streams and water ways. The pipeline owners or oil company's throw everything at it and its cleaned up in no time because they don't want the negative publicity. Cost is irrelevant for them.

If you go secant wall, then it is installed first. You drill the holes then pour the piles side by side, then you excavate, and they are permanent. The sheet piling is driven in, it goes in first as well, it usually stays in the ground forever but it can be removed. The entire Zoo island is presently having sheet piling installed around its entire perimeter, precautionary measures for the next flood.

Install sheet piling or a secant wall around the perimeter of construction site and/or contaminated area. Excavate the center, construct building, backfill, Viola. You see it downtown all the time. The tricky part I think will be the air monitoring, air quality, containing and collecting the ground water/river seepage. Typical sites produce clean ground water that is easy to collect and discharge, here it must be collected then dealt with. The contaminated soil/gravels need to be hauled and treated somewhere as well. This might take 7-8 years for a monkey contractor, but maybe a year for a good contractor. Secant Wall Sheet Piling

I’m thinking a field house at the U of C would have no roof -too expensive, making it useful for maybe 6 months of the year. A field house incorporated into CalgaryNext would have a roof making it useful year round? I think the conversation needs to be the clean-up. Can it be cleaned up? How much to clean up? How long to clean up? If this task can not be done then everything else is for not.

No, he is not my brother. Would it make any difference if he was? Do you give family members free passes? I don’t, I hold them to higher standards. I have had conversations with the man, solid guy, providing leadership and vision. Now it’s up to the people to decide how they want this community to move forward. Some are happy with status quo, some are happy with duct tape and adding a few cameras, some would like state of the art facilities to move the city into the 21st century at every level of sports and entertainment. Make your choice then be prepared to live with it.

Have you been living under a rock? I think KK has been doing an outstanding job with this building proposal and I’m not sure if there is anyone out there that could do a better job with it.

MRU and SAIT would probably disagree with you, they might even tell you their athletes are better. The EDM field house is 5 km from the U of A, opposite ends of DT and across the river from each other, never hear anyone complaining up there. With all the field houses in Canada, I guess we had better get busy building Universities around all of them by your logic.

How about a Field House centrally located in between all 3 major Calgary Universities/Colleges (SAIT, MRU and U of C)? CalgaryNext is a 10 minute drive from all three locations.

As Cross mentioned, 5 years has come and gone. With or without the mayor’s approval the Flames have decided it’s time to get off the pot. Mayor's come and go, professional sporting franchises usually don’t. Some mayor's appreciate what sports bring to a community, it appears other mayors don’t care.

It took 5 years because that is how long Roger’s Place took to built. KK was patient enough to wait his turn. There is never a good time to ask for $800M, but to ask for it while the province was watching the EDM Roger’s Place fiasco would have been in very poor taste. Nobody can predict the highs and lows of the economy. If you can, maybe you could tell us when the next ones will occur. To start a project like this at the peak of a boom when unemployment is at its lowest, prices at the highest, with only unskilled labor available may not be the best idea. Waiting for a recession when contractors are hungry with sharper pencils will only save the city money. You call it contaminated, then you call in prime land, it can’t be both. Difficult to call it prime land when you are unable to stick a shovel in it. The Flames offered $200M, which would go along ways towards the cleanup. Is there anybody else standing in line offering to clean it up? Horrible location? In what sense? There are people with professions who know how to move traffic. This was a proposal at preferred location. Plan B, C, D, E, F, G, H…………… were not offered. Maybe KK needs to make a trip to Seattle to get dialog started and peoples hands out of their pockets? No, he has too much class for that. I have a hard time believing that Nenshi had no idea about what the Flames were proposing. Maybe KK had hit a wall with Nenshi and was then forced to present it to the public?

You keep saying this. Maybe you could elaborate on why you think this was such a poor proposal and how KK failed? The Flames chose a parcel land in the vicinity of DT, a location which has proven league wide to be essential for success. The parcel has limited development on it which would allow for rather easy surface demolition. The sub-surface contamination has always been known, but at what cost is still somewhat unknown. The Flames contacted other jurisdictions (Minnesota?) which had similar problems to research what they were dealing with and how it could be cleaned up. The Flames then offered a vision to the people of Calgary on what they planned to build at proposed location. The Flames extended their hand to the city saying “lets clean this up, develop the waste land and build a multi-facility building this city so very much needs”. Flames offer to kick in $200M for a city owned building. The proposed location also happens to have a new LRT system running straight through it which is capable of moving the expected crowds in and out. Again, please elaborate on where you feel the Flames made an epic proposal failure.

Maybe it's time for a new mayor, one that has vision, one who can lead, one who can solve problems.

Not sure what the record is but he has to be close. Miss the days when Peter Mahr used to give us those daily interesting tid-bits. It goes beyond that, Elliott is 14-1-1 in his last 16 games. Last night he was one giveaway from getting his 3rd SO in 4 games. His last 9 games average 0.957 SA%, possibly the hottest GT’er in the galaxy right now. The million-dollar dilemma is how do you keep him dialed in without burning him out while you have a competent backup on the bench? You don’t win SC’s in games 72-82, you win them in 4th round of the playoffs, potentially 38 games from now.

When they renovated the Dome they removed several rows in the upper portion of the lower bowl in favour of new luxury box seats. I'm sure this was done because the box seats bring in more money. The Dome now has two layers of luxury box seats, one in the lower bowl and one in the second level. I'm not sure I buy your reasoning. Yes we have a small lower bowl, not sure how this effects seat prices in the middle bowl.

How does 18,000 people in a new building make more $'s for the NHL than 18,000 in an older building? Just curious.

Hmmm........no plug-ins for his 70 inch TV.

Must you sling mud every time someone questions your ideas? What do you think DET would want back in return and you be willing to pay it?