Hammer9001
Registered User
City Manager Chris Murray opened an audit to examine First Ontario Centre as a city asset this year. The results are yet to be published. They were supposed to consult all of the facility stakeholders, and you can imagine that Andlauer and Staios are pushing for a a decommission and re-build. This would be down the line though, like 5 years out. You have to believe they will be one of 10 or so teams bidding for the 2018 Centennial Memorial Cup, and want the building at full capacity.
The perfect type of facility would be one similar to the Budweiser Gardens in London, approximately 10 000 seats, with the option of expansion to 15 000 - 17 000 if an NHL team is ever re-located. The only problem is, where is there the urban footprint for an arena this size available? The answer is right across the street. John A. MacDonald school, which will need to be surplussed by the HWDSB. It will require a lot of backroom advocating to see this done, but in the end, it could prove to be a fantastic strategic plan by the city, the team and local community.
The main issue the First Ontario center has is that it does host events where the capacity gets reached or comes close to it. Mainly big concerts (like Black Sabbath), big events (like the Juno's) or larger events where retractable seats come in handy (like Trade Shows and Monster Trucks) and the city doesn't want to discard that potential function of the arena. The difference between a 10,000 seater and 15,000+ is substantial.
What I think the best best is to drastically rework/redo the seating so there's a lot more leg room and lot more seat width and you open up the concourse and put your (larger) private boxes on the second deck like most arenas, but somehow make them modular so they can be removed for higher capacity events. You also have the ability to use unused, boxes for camera mounts, and can more effectively curtain off the top.
Has to be cheaper to do then building a new arena.