Saskatoon councillor worries false figure being floated for arena district cost

Saskatoon councillor worries false figure being floated for arena district cost

Coun. Troy Davies calls $1.6B figure used to gather petition signatures misleading and inaccurate

A Saskatoon councillor is concerned about an inflated figure being used to collect signatures to force a referendum on a downtown arena.

Coun. Troy Davies told CBC's Saskatoon Morning on Friday that the $1.6-billion figure used by the group gathering signatures for a petition to trigger a vote on the downtown arena is misleading and inaccurate.

Davies said the only official figure for the district comes from two years ago, when a consultant contracted by city hall pegged the total cost of the Downtown Event and Entertainment District (DEED) at $1.2 billion.

"So that's a lot different than the $1.6 billion number that — I don't even know where that number came from — but I just wanted some clarity on that," Davies told host Candice Lipski.

"I have no problem as long as people want to sign any petitions or not, but they need to have all the information and it's got to be transparent."

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The group collecting signatures — which includes Ken Wood, the former director of the arena now called SaskTel Centre — is seeking to halt the arena component of the district.

Davies said the arena alone was estimated to cost $632.1 million, or slightly more than half of the total cost of the district. That price covers a facility that can seat 15,900.

The 2024 estimate from Vancouver-based BTY Group pegs the cost of a renovated and expanded TCU Place convention centre at $221 million, a parking facility at $75 million and renovations to the Sid Buckwold Theatre inside TCU Place at $52 million.

The rest of the cost would go to smaller infrastructure improvements.

Davies also asked for clarity at city council Wednesday on the cost of a possible standalone referendum held outside a regular election.

City clerk Adam Tittemore told Davies the best comparison would be the 2024 election, which cost $1.2 million. But that cost was split between the city and the school boards. Tittemore added there is no money budgeted for a potential standalone vote.

CBC sent requests for comment to Wood and the website advocating for an arena petition Friday, but did not receive replies.

The website connected to the group gathering signatures for the petition, which includes no names of the people involved, cites a July story by Saskatoon's CKOM outlet as the source for the $1.6-billion "estimated project cost."

The only mention of that number in the story linked to comes from speculation by Coun. Robert Pearce that the district could eventually cost more than $1.6 billion.

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Pearce got council support last month for an updated cost for the arena district. Council heard Wednesday that a new estimate from BTY Group is expected in December.

The group gathering signatures has until Dec. 11 to collect 26,615 signatures, which represents 10 per cent of the city's population as recorded in the 2021 census.

Davies also got support for an updated cost for renovating SaskTel Centre, which was built in 1988 on the northwest outskirts of the city. The city's website for DEED estimates the cost of renovating the 38-year-old facility at $300 million.

Council also supported Davies's request for a timeline of decisions made about the district, since discussions about the future of Saskatoon's arena date back 10 years.

Phil Tank is an award-winning journalist based in Saskatoon. He can be reached at phil.tank@cbc.ca.