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Time for a New Vancouver Ballpark?

BC Place and Nat Bailey are aging, the Whitecaps are surging. In short, a stadium full of opportunities.

Brian Schecter 13 Apr 2005TheTyee.ca
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Pop the bubble?

What happens to Vancouver’s gigantic downtown mushroom after the Olympics? The fate of BC Place Stadium is still anyone’s guess. The one with the final say, the provincial government, has gone into hibernation on the issue pending this spring’s election.

But the region’s population growth, pricey land values and the coming Olympics are sharpening the imaginations of politicians and planners. They’re not only asking what to do with the Dome. Some would like to see a major stadium built in the Lower Mainland, a classy new home for professional soccer and maybe other teams.

But with that vision come new questions. If you build a stadium, will they come? And who will pay for it? Around town a lot of discussions, so far private and out of sight, centre on those questions.

Beating the drum loudly, however, is NPA Park Board Commissioner Suzanne Anton, elected to the Vancouver Park Board two and a half years ago. Anton’s preliminary investigations included looking at the edges of the Downtown East Side, most specifically on land located on the fringes of Chinatown, adjacent to the old CN Train Station.

The area is ripe for development and would fit into the city’s long-term master plan to revitalize the downtown core. Building a new stadium there, however, appears far down the list of civic priorities. A factor is that Anton lacks political juice in her new role on the Park Board, which prefers to focus on developing green spaces and community-based facilities.

What about Nat Bailey?

One big facility commanding the Park Board attention is the curling venue for the 2010 Games. It’s slated to be located at Vancouver’s Riley and Hillcrest Parks, next to Nat Bailey Stadium, home of the Northwest League Vancouver Canadians.

As part of the legacy program associated with Vancouver 2010, the Park Board will inherit the new $28 million curling facility along with a new community centre, library, swimming pool and skating rink, plus assorted other local area park improvements and amenities.

Will any of that glitter rub off on old Nat? Not much, it seems. The Park Board is landlord to the old ball park, built in the early 50’s within the boundaries of Queen Elizabeth Park. Today, the team that plays there, the single-A level Vancouver Canadians, occupies a low rung in minor league baseball. Vancouver used to have a triple-A team, but they outgrew Nat Bailey and departed for Sacramento in 1999.

The current thinking by the Park Board centers on keeping the baseball facility as is and upgrading the infrastructure of the 55 year old stadium as funds and time allow. That’s fine with owners of the Canadians. As the territorial rights holder to minor league baseball, and assuming the C’s are content to remain a part of the single-A short season Northwest League, Nat Bailey is more than adequate.

Rising Whitecaps

Across town, the A-League Vancouver Whitecaps are making waves about building a new, downtown, soccer-centric facility.

While ‘Caps owner Greg Kerfoot’s plans to build a privately financed new stadium to house both the men’s and women’s pro teams have been percolating for over a year now, Vancouver’s bid to grab a piece of the 2007 World Under 20 FIFA Championships has given those rumours some sense of urgency.

The Whitecaps have identified a number of potential sites, including a chunk of waterfront land. City planners are said to be open to the concept, but their interest is dependent upon approval from the land’s owners, Port Vancouver, who want to reserve the land for future expanded port-related business.

The Whitecaps alternate plans could include reviving Park Board Commissioner Anton’s ideas for an outdoor stadium somewhere in the False Creek flats area.

The Whitecaps currently play at Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium (capacity 5,722). While temporary seating could add another 1,100 seats, those numbers are about half of what the team envisions for a new stadium home.

Even then, at 15,000 seats, the numbers do not work for Vancouver’s CFL Lions, who would need a minimum 35,000 seat stadium and the ability to expand to over 50,000 for Grey Cup host city needs.

Lions waiting to huddle

Which brings us back to BC Place Stadium. While the Lions are content to extend their current lease through 2010, they are no doubt looking forward to huddling after the election with the provincial government over the question of their long term lodging.

Opened with fanfare worthy of a royal tour, Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium aged quicker than the Queen herself. Hailed as state of the art in 1983, the big dome was supposed to help put Vancouver on the big league map. In fact, built for an affordable $126 million, the stadium quickly attracted a wide array of sports, entertainment and trade show events.

The CFL’s Lions were quick off the mark – routinely packing their new football home, regularly drawing near standing-room-only crowds. BC Place would go on to host concerts, Papal tours, Expo 86, trade shows and sporting events.

Things, however, have changed. Operating in the black until the late 90s, the stadium has run deficits of around $2 million a year for the last eight years.

When the Liberals took over in Victoria in 2001, BC Place Stadium and its parent corporation BC Pavilion Corp. (PAVCO) came under the critical eye of the new provincial government. The Liberals pared back PAVCO operations and the future of BC Place Stadium was put on hold, pending the outcome of Vancouver’s bid to host the 2010 Winter Games.

Which is why few were cheering louder for Vancouver to win Olympic hosting honours than Stadium general manager Howard Crosley. His venue will host the opening and closing ceremonies.

Given that minimum five-year stay of execution, BC Place officials recently met with Vancouver planners as part of the city’s North East False Creek Official Development Plan. One idea discussed centered around building a mixed conference center, office and retail facility on the Smythe and Pacific corner.

Fresh turf

The biggest concern right now is what to do with the stadium in the short term.

Options will increase when Crosley replaces the Stadium’s worn out Astroturf carpet with FieldTurf he secured from Montreal’s Olympic Stadium – an affordable $1.5 million option that fell into his lap when the Expos left Montreal for Washington D.C.

In addition to saving about $750,000, buying the used FieldTurf surface potentially opens up new sports event opportunities for the stadium. According to Crosley, even adding four new major sports events per year would allow the Stadium to wipe out annual deficits.

For example, FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, has recently given its blessing to the synthetic surface, paving the way for FieldTurf venues to host major international matches and tournaments. With Canada already selected as the host country for the 2007 Youth (Boys U-20) Championships, BC Place Stadium officials would love nothing better than to showcase their new carpet at that time.

Similarly, the International Rugby Board’s ruling has okayed FieldTurf as a legitimate playing surface.

Although many at BC Place would dearly love to revive the annual pre-season baseball games, scheduling conflicts with existing trade and consumer shows make that unlikely.

Adding sports-related dates to the BC Place Stadium calendar opens up the potential to grow other venue-based revenue streams.

Increased events would translate into more exposure and in turn would be an enticement to lure new sponsors to the table. Dome officials are currently exploring building naming rights options – a title sponsorship opportunity that could bring in up to $750,000 a year in new revenues.

It’s all in play

So where will denizens of the Lower Mainland find themselves munching popcorn, drinking beer, and cheering themselves hoarse a decade down the road, if not sooner?

To date, the various stakeholders have not forged any real common bond, opting instead to act independently from one another, to further their own respective self-interests.

The Park Board is focused on post Olympic 2010 world and dealing with the legacies from the Games.

The Friends of Nat Bailey Stadium lobby group, is expending its energies ensuring the survival of pro baseball in Vancouver.

The Whitecaps are trying to move forward with their stadium plans – hoping other interested parties like the Lions, will join their cause - sooner rather than later.

As for Anton, she is ramping up for a run at City Council this fall, with an eye towards raising the profile of the stadium debate onto the civic stage. Whether that campaign is enough to jump-start the issue, remains to be seen.

Brian Schecter is a writer, producer, and consultant with a focus on media and marketing, and an occasional contributor to The Tyee. He lives in Vancouver.  [Tyee]

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