307 replies to this topic

[G-Man]

They were WHL I think.

I am not a hockey fan but I think that the games do bring a lot of money into the area around the arena. I think we will see game totals at about 4500 - 5500 for the reg season this year. I wonder if ticket sales have gone up since the joint venture with the nucks?

[Carewser]

Man is that article funny to read. Man how things have changed and yet haven't. Still think we should have gone bigger but overall the arena has been a big win for the city.

My sentiments exactly, and the main reason i voted for Alan Lowe. It is a LOT better than the old arena.

[aastra]

My favourite excerpts:

Nor is Savoie enthused about the arena’s design, which to her is bland and unexceptional. (To some, it looks like a beached BC ferry.)

“There’s nothing in that design that says: “This is B.C—this is the capital of B.C.”

I suppose she wanted to see a peaked roof and river rocks? Sad but true, some Victorians believe that everything in Victoria sucks...and must suck...no matter what it is or what it looks like. Condense the negativity into some trite dismissal ("it looks like a beached BC ferry"). Repeat.

But the impact of traffic on the North Park neighbourhood is central to her concerns: “I will not sacrifice a neighbourhood for an arena.”

Um, arena was there first? Just saying.*

*Looking back at this post many years later, I'm not sure what I meant by this. I assume I was equating the North Park neighbourhood with all of the modern apartment blocks and condo buildings that came along well after the 1949 arena. But obviously the old residential neighbourhood was indeed there long before the 1949 arena. However, it does seem funny that Victorians were willing to sacrifice the entire Blanshard/Rose neighbourhood for the Blanshard Street extension, but they wanted to draw a line in the sand re: a new arena on the 1949 arena's site.

Edited by aastra, 14 February 2018 - 11:01 AM.

[G-Man]

If anything the traffic has improved the neighbourhood. Bringing pedestrains though the hood at later times at night. The car window smashing has definitely gone down.

[Scaper]

I totally wish they went with that China Town design.

Imagine after a game, if you didn't want the hassle of the conjested traffic, you could have taken a stroll along the water front and taken in a nice walk. It would have also been larger suited for the Cities needs. Now what is there to do after a game, a concert....hmmmm nothing, just leave town and grab a coffee somewhere or just get the heck home. That was a really bad dicission they made.

Trust me, when Langford builds this new arena, it will be packed for concerts and shows. The city will finally have a place to host world class events, Olympics, Indoor Soccer, ETC.

Going back to the Concert situation. GM Place in Vancouver is extremely expensive to book. If an artist had a choice to filll out a 12 - 15,000 seet arena on the island, that cost half to book as GM Place, they would.

If Concert goers had the chance to see these shows at a much cheaper ticket price in a new state of the art Arena with out the ferry Costs they would.

I have said this before Between Nan. And Vic. there is over 600,000 people. A 12,000 + seat arena is the right size. The leaders behind this are very wealthy smart business men. If it was feasable they wouldn't be planning it. It's just sad that it took foresight from Langford to get this ball rolling.

My question is what will be of Save ON Foods Memorial Centre when the New arena is operating in Langford?

[Mike K.]

Scaper, you mentioned previously that some of the individuals potentially dabbling with the Langford arena were the ones who killed one of the 12,000 seat proposals that was going to go through.

[Scaper]

Exactly, Business people. If David Passant's proposal went through, Langford would have nothing to build.

The Courtnal's who headed the last minute business (group) to kill this project back in the 90's obviously had something up their sleave. Now we see what it is.

I could never understand why the Courtnal Brothers, who also at one time owned that Over Time restaurant, came out at the last minute to kill this project, when it had been in the work of way over a year. It made no sense to me at the time, though I wondered what their motives were for doing this.

Now they are partners in the behind scenes pushing this in Langford.

[DelsterX]

I worked on the David Passant Design Drawings and the Architectural scale model when I worked at a local Architectural firm back in the 90's. The reason it fell throught is simply he could not secure the finacning in time. There are laws of how much money can be wired accross the border. So this red tape basically sunk the project not what a couple of ex hockey players had to say. Just for the record...

[VicHockeyFan]

I worked on the David Passant Design Drawings and the Architectural scale model when I worked at a local Architectural firm back in the 90's. The reason it fell throught is simply he could not secure the finacning in time. There are laws of how much money can be wired accross the border. So this red tape basically sunk the project not what a couple of ex hockey players had to say. Just for the record...

I go with this too.

[Galvanized]

Ya, I seem to recall he kept missing financing deadlines.

[Scaper]

But that being said, the Courtnal and their business buddies, came out at the last minute and trashed this proposal. There wasn't a peep from them or others until the last minute.

that being said, this should have never even have started. It should have been the China town Arena.

[DelsterX]

Word! Yes That is what I voted for. I remember it looked like a mini GM Place design.

[Scaper]

It was, it would have been awesome...and finnished today!!!!

[aastra]

Ever heard of the Mile One Stadium in St. John's, NFLD (pop. 175,000, or about exactly half the population of Victoria)?

It's a brand new building, just slightly smaller than Victoria's new arena. But notice the picture...they have a proper video scoreboard.

It wouldn't be hard for Langford or even Nanaimo to build a new facility that's as good or better than Victoria's new arena.

Wikipedia says the Mile One Stadium cost $35 million, or about the same amount as the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre.

[VicHockeyFan]

Bill Clinton is very heavily credible-rumoured to be coming here to speak at SOFMC.

[TheVisionary]

^ the arena doesn't own the speakers and sound system, that is the fault of the acts themselves..

anyway, just got my tix for BEP, but who gives a rats ass, I'm there to get close to Rihanna...

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Hey, I like your Rihanna picture! She looks a lot better than some of the local females.

Aaarrggghhh! It's so frustrating that many people from near and far say Victoria doesn't have its "****" together: politically, socially, economically. Why do you think so many "young" Victorians move to Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, etc. to make something of themselves? Victoria eats its youngest, brightest, and most enthusiastic. It's like the land of perpetual living death!

[TheVisionary]

This is Save On Foods Arena. In the 1940's Victoria built an Arena that lasted us 60 years. It was built when Victoria had the population of almost what Port Alberni has today. The seating capacity of that arena "Memorial" was 5000. Now in 2006 work is still not completed on this new arena. Victoria has grown by 6X what it was in the 40s. The seating in this arena is only 2000 seats more than the old Memorial for a total of 7000 seats. Thanks due to another under achieving development, this city has given the green light to Langford who is now planning a 12,500 + seat arena in the Western Communities.

Before the Common Wealth Games the Federal Government was willing to kick in a 50 percent grant of the total cost of a new arena. The City put out a referendum on it. Though as great politicians they were, they did a nasty. The only way citizens could vote for a new arena is if they also voted for a new sewage treatment plant and a list of other things. It was an all or nothing vote. Though everyone wanted the new arena Victorians didn't want to pay the tax dollars on the Sewage plant. So it failed and the City paid a total of 9 million dollars renewing the old Memorial Arena. A new roof, all new seats, a new ice surface, a new clock, a new sound system and the list goes on. Oh and the beauty of it, because it was not a new arena the Feds didn't have to pay anything. So if the City put that 9 million dollars into a new arena the Feds would have paid 9 too as well the provincial government was going to cough some up too.

So with the great foresight our city had, the arena less than 5 years later was deemed to unsafe and too old. The City got bids from numerous developers. Jim Hartshorne had one at 7500 seats, Mr. Perin had one in China Town at 9,500 seats, and David Passant had one at 9,000 seats, which grew larger as his proposal changed and others.

The City asked for a public input session. The people were allowed to vote. Personally I voted for the China town arena. Which was to have new walk ways around the ocean front was to connect to the cause way at some time. Funny thing is so did the majority of the people. This shocked City Staff because they really wanted David Peasant’s project. Since he was an owner of the now defunct IHL Spider franchise. So the city went against what the people voted and went with David Passant's Sports Entertainment Proposal.

It grew to a large proposal. The arena grew to 10,500 seats it was to have two separate ice surfaces for trade show purposes and to provide Victorians with the much needed extra ice sheets. At the latest stages of this proposal the Courtnal Brothers and other business leaders came out and stated that this was much too large for Victoria and they helped rally up a protest and killed the project.

Now the City of Victoria has it's arena with a dismal 7000 seats, while Langford is proposing/planning it's 12,500 seater, with the help of the Bear Mountain team. Oh and who is on this Bear Mountain Development team...yeah you guessed it The Courtnal Brothers! Ahhh now it all makes so much more sense.

Langford Council has stated that being located between Nanaimo and Victoria Centrally located in the middle of 600,000 people; they are the prime location for the region's much needed entrainment facility. They are also in co operation with the other main Western Community Councils working towards a 12,000 plus outdoor stadium too. They are working with Soccer Canada on this and council has stated that it could be built in the next 5 years.

So thanks for the great Vision Victoria as you have under achieved and gave up another prime center piece for this city. This arena is another Victoria Conference Center, Too Small, Too Late, and Poorly designed (when ever finished). By the way Nanaimo's conference center will be 5 X the size of Victoria's---but that's another story. :?

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I sometimes work at the SOFMC arena. It's really fun working for the Usher/Security/First Aid contractor.

Cultural events bring in calm, behaved people and they are pussy cats to deal with. Skating, Harlem Globetrotters basketball, curling, Lord of the Dance, and trade show crowds are so easy to tell them where to go.

Heavy Metal Music Bands, WWE Wrestling, etc brings out heavy pot smokers, biker gang members, really drunk people who seem to like to throw things (seat cushions, food, drinks, souvenirs), grab the serving girls' asses, swear, brawl, throw up all over the place, piss in the bushes, fall down the stairs, and challenge authority figures like us staff people. Sometimes armed police would augment the arena security guards when biker gang members are in attendence.

[VicHockeyFan]

Victoria's arena: Three big mistakes
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Big City, Bright Lights: Victoria's new arena hasn't met with everybody's approval, including letter-writer Eric Elbers.
Photograph by : John McKay, Times Colonist files
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Published: Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Every time I drive by the Victoria arena I sense a disconnect with the place.

Why is that? First, I think we made a colossal mistake by selling its name and thereby our sense of ownership for a few dollars. Then we compounded the mistake by adding to that name to connect with our history.

So we ended up with this bizarre hybrid Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

What does this name tell us and tell about us? A centre where we come together to have memories how we saved on foods?

Second, we ended up with a failed public-art piece that we do not connect with, can play with or our kids can play on.

And third, we added to our mistakes by allowing an enormous piece of visual pollution to be erected that visually screams at us with unrelated commercial messages. In our lovely, clean and considered city, do we want that?

When I am in my car waiting at the Blanshard-Caledonia intersection for the traffic lights to change I find myself looking away from this annoying billboard with a brightness that is out of all proportion and hurts my eyes.

Looking away from what should have been our Victoria Arena.

Eric Elbers,

Victoria.

[G-Man]

Oh god...

This curmudgeon should stop thinking so much about the arena and put his efforts into more productive pursuits like stealing candy from children and stomping on daffodils.

I forget the exact amount but I am sure that the naming rights were more than a few dollars.

And please let 2007 be the end of the rock shell pavillion discussion. If anyone ever tries to take it down I will chain myself to it. Not because I love it but because it pisses off other people, good that is what art should do.

Also there are many people, forumers among them, that are making a healthy living off the solar radiation from the sign. So stop thinking of yourself while clogging our streets and think of your fellow Victorians!

[Holden West]

^The radiation emitted by the sign is not solar, it is electromagnetic ionizing radiation, a form of X-Ray. It is perfectly safe for drivers and passengers within closed vehicles, and pedestrians can approach the sign for brief periods of up to several seconds at least once a year while still conforming to Canadian safety standards.