Arena d-day in Sudbury

By Amanda Zurkowski
June 27, 2017
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This marks what could be one of the most monumental days for City Council in Sudbury. Tonight, City Council is expected to make a decision in regards to the new arena/events centre and where it will be located.

Originally there were 20-plus locations identified, which were very quickly short-listed to four contenders — two locations in the south end, a downtown location, and the Kingsway location.

Personally, I have always from day one thought the arena needed to be located on the Kingsway site but my personal feelings aside, I believe that City Council has a decision to make that will impact our economic growth as a city for years to come.

I am very actively involved in community projects and am well versed on the happenings of this decision. I sit on multiple task forces with the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce, including a major projects task force and have seen first-hand presentations from the City of Sudbury, Sudbury Wolves owner Dario Zulich, et al.

This has been one of the hottest topics for the last 18 months in Greater Sudbury. The reality of the situation is we have an aging arena that is not up to date and requires $50-60 million in upgrades to even come close to today’s standards. The infrastructure is aging and the best solution is to start fresh and build new.

We now know that of the four short-listed sites, through the report done by PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP) has been narrowed down even further to two locations. Tonight, City Council is expected to debate and vote on the location — either downtown Sudbury or the Kingsway location.

Since this is essentially my own personal opinion on things, I might as well continue on that trend and share with you my reasons why. I have sat through hours and hours of meetings and presentations on the new arena/events centre, have spent countless hours reading reports and have also been fortunate enough to travel around both the Ontario Hockey League and the National Hockey League to see different arenas and the settings in which they surround themselves with.

I am going to use Barrie as an OHL example to compare to the Kingsway location here in Sudbury. When the Barrie Molson Centre opened on December 31, 1995 — fittingly enough against the Sudbury Wolves — there was very little surrounding it.

Over the years, the area has developed into a hot spot in Barrie with premium box stores and excellent choices for dining. We are already years ahead if City Council chooses the Kingsway location, as Gateway Casinos has signed a letter of intent to house a new casino on the Kingsway site.

There are letters of intent from premium hotel chains, as well as a motorsports park that is revving its engines to be a part of Zulich’s True North Strong development.

Long term, I believe this provides the City of Greater Sudbury and its residents the best return on their investment. The impact will take longer to be felt from an economic standpoint but this opportunity allows Sudbury to really be put on the map, not for just mining and health care, but as an entertainment destination for all of northern Ontario.

I have gotten into some pretty heated discussions over the last 12 months regarding a downtown location and have happily listened to anyone who wanted to share their reasons why they felt it was the best location. I agree with some of their reasoning for sure, having the arena downtown fits nicely into our downtown master plan.

Yes, there are already some great restaurants in the downtown core and there are some great boutique shops in the core as well. However, there is truly a cap on how much the downtown can grow, as there is only so much space. There are issues with parking, although this can be argued, since within a 10-minute walk of the proposed site there are over 3,000 parking spaces. But my argument to this is, when I come out of the arena after everyone else when I am finishing up a Wolves broadcast with Eastlink TV, as a single mom the last thing I want to do is walk through our downtown core with a child.

Is it perceived danger or real danger, that too can be argued but I prefer to park as humanly close to the door as possible for a sense of security and maybe that is all it is, a sense of security.

There are some other great projects on the table within the downtown master plan that would definitely help compliment this project in the downtown core but I’m just not sold on it.

I think if we build downtown we are limiting what could be for Sudbury.

Now is the time for City Council to be bold and choose something that goes against the grain a little bit — but that could and I believe would pay off in huge dividends for Sudbury, by choosing the Kingsway location.