Q&A: Top city officials defend, explain the latest deal to replace the Saddledome

It's official. Calgary is getting a new downtown arena.

How many times has that been said in the past few years?

The City of Calgary, the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC), the provincial government and the Calgary Stampede have all signed off on a series of agreements that clear the way for a new arena and the build out of a new entertainment district.

The arena is slated to cost $800 million, while other expenses, including surrounding infrastructure, bring total project costs close to $1.2 billion.  

The city will be contributing $537 million to the project, while CSEC is putting forward $356 million (in present value). 

Under the terms of the agreement, CSEC has agreed to make annual payments to the city of $17 million for 35 years, which include an annual escalation of one per cent.

The province is putting forward $330 million to be used toward infrastructure investments, including land purchases, road and bridge construction, and demolishing the Saddledome. 

While the design of the arena is still under development — and the idea is that construction will start in 2024 — no one is saying just yet when the building will open.

In the wake of the finalization of the deal, CBC News put some questions to two top City of Calgary officials who have been overseeing the file on the megaproject.

They are city manager David Duckworth and Michael Thompson, the general manager of infrastructure services.

The discussion has been edited for length and clarity.

CBC: How do you address concerns that the city is putting up too much money for the arena?DD: Well, I think first and foremost, it's important to point out that we're not just building an arena. We're building a culture and entertainment district. We're going to completely transform that area in the next five to 10 years here. When we look back, I think Calgarians are going to be incredibly proud. So we're building a brand-new, 18,000-plus-seats arena [and] downtown's only community rink, a 1,000-seat community rink. There will be outdoor and indoor public gathering spaces.

We're hoping that Calgarians and visitors can come and experience events on the outside without them having to be on the inside. So it's really about building community. In addition to that, the new event centre will be right across the street from Canada's second-largest convention centre, which is going to be incredible. And so it's just completely transforming that area. The good news is we know the Saddledome needs to be replaced. It's 40 years old. Either [it] needs to be replaced or it needs hundreds of millions of dollars of upgrades. With our brand-new event centre, we're going to have an anchor tenant [Calgary Flames] for 35 years.

So the city owns this facility and we have an anchor tenant for the next 35 years that will help, that will operate, maintain that facility, have a professional sports team, host incredible events for all Calgarians and visitors to come to. So it's much more about an investment that the city is making in that district as it is about the operators of an NHL team.But the last time there was an arena deal, it was basically 50-50 (City/CSEC) and this time it's not like that. Why?