Pas certain de comprendre qu’est-ce que la CAQ a à gagner à investir près d’un milliard dans un stade qu’une bonne partie de sa base électorale à Québec et dans les régions considère comme une “éléphant blanc” et un gaspillage d’argent historique en faveur de Montréal.
Les radio-poubelles de Québec vont se faire plaisir de ramener la décision à l’avant-plan dans les prochaines années, ce qui va faire mal à la CAQ dans les intentions de vote pour les régions dont elle a le plus besoin pour obtenir un autre mandat.
Prendre cette décision dans le contexte actuel d’un chute de popularité du gouvernement est au contraire un rare moment de lucidité en ce qui a trait à des projets d’envergure qui n’ont pas pour but principal d’aller chercher des votes. Sans oublier que le projet est appuyé par tous les partis à l’assemblé nationale, une autre rareté et une preuve qu’il obtient l’acceptabilité politique.
As if these two were mutually exclusive. Une autre fausse dichotomie. En tout cas, on partira pas un débat sur les valeurs du “pragmatisme”. Probablement que Kissinger se disait la même chose pour le Cambodge haha (ceci est une hyperbole exagéré à but humoristique).
la valeur patrimoniale paye votre loyer, epicerie et autres besoin essentielle? Et quoi, l’erection du stade depuis les années 70 a améliorer la vie des Québecois?
The simple fact that we need public funds in order to finance this is proof that we can’t afford it. All of these exotic social programs and more should be financed by a strong private sector sending billons in revenue to Quebec City. It’s such a mess…no one should have to pay for this, same thing with the Centre Videotron. These are ‘gifts’ or consequences of being a prosperous society. Quebecers don’t want to establish the conditions that create wealth but want all the perks. Pure nonsense…
You think Quebecers don’t deserve the perks of their insanely high taxes and developed society? Renovating publicly owned infrastructure to actually put it to use is considered far outside the realm of what we can afford now? Damn the state of most of the countries on earth would shock you then. There is actually a lot of wealth here. So, I honestly believe we can afford to pay our nurses and teachers, as well as maintain the extremely few and far between iconic buildings we have. This city doesn’t have the benefit of preserved relics from antiquity. The least we can do is maintain a modern icon we do have.
It also sucks that we’re basing the value of heritage buildings on their ability to feed or house people. That is not their purpose, but if we’re at that point of desperation in our society where the only things the government can be concerned with is feeding people, literally subsistence requirements, we’re toast
Here’s an aside for those who want the stadium demolished. What do you think should be in it’s place? Nothing? I’m not sure the residents of Hochelaga would appreciate that. I’m curious about legitimate suggestions! Let’s say you’re trying to convince a skeptic…
Unfortunately just the fact that we’re able to say it is an architectural work of art, and a symbol of Montreal, puts it squarely in sentimental territory. The debate wouldn’t be this extensive if it wasn’t. If the stadium was ugly and didn’t appeal to emotion, it would have been imploded in the years after the games.
Michel Labrecque expliquait dans une entrevue que le stade n’a jamais été conçu pour être ouvert. C’est compliqué et dispendieux de l’hiverner en plus que ça va détériorer la structure encore plus vite.
But look at my post to which you’re responding. I said doing the roof without doing the rest of the work is what’s illogical.
So we are being told that spending close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money on this roof is necessary in order to attract events again, that it will have a return on the investment. But as has been pointed out many times already, without doing everything that’s needed to make it a modern, world-class 50000-seat amphitheatre, it will remain unused. By the time a future government gets around to doing the rest, the total amount spent will have been enough to have built two or three brand-new, state-of-the-art stadiums, with money left over to do the basic maintenance needed to keep the “symbol” in HM from imploding.
On Facebook and Instagram, Parc Olympique keeps replying to comments by saying that planning is ongoing for replacement of the seats, sound and HVAC systems, so there’s that.
Except that’s simply misleading… where would we have the space to build another 50,000+ stadium anyway, and how much do you think transit would cost to reach that new stadium the same way Pie-IX and Viau metros do, considering today’s transit construction costs?
Even for non concerts, the fact that the Olympic Stadium will be able to host international conventions and fairs will take pressure off of Palais des Congrès. The Olympic Park is actually a pretty great area with the Botanical Gardens, the Planetarium, the Insectarium, Maisonneuve Park, Saputo Stadium, the future hotel, etc. Pie-IX metro is built to handle large crowds, as we saw last summer when both Fierté Montréal and Metallica ended at the same time.
You are right that the roof is not enough to make it a 21st century stadium. I guess to me (being hell bent on preservation), any scenario that doesn’t involve demolition implicitly requires a roof. So this is the first step regardless. Would I prefer they just announce a full budget today for the whole thing? Yes. I think it would even go down better with the public
I don’t think winterization is feasible. It’s a big concrete bowl that has a history of structural fragility. If my front steps are not fond of the freeze thaw, I can’t imagine what it’s doing to the internals of that building. Not only that, what kind of events could we hold in the middle of winter? It feels more limited to keep the building in that state
I love the big O and I want it to stay. I really believe that they should also add financing to repair and improve the acoustic of this building. We missed out on a lot of economic benefits for tourism like the Taylor Swift concert etc…
I can’t say for that specific artist, but it’s been reported time and time again that promoters are passing on Montreal because of lack of large venue available and the issues with the Olympic Stadium.
As for Taylor Swift herself… I really hope she doesn’t show up here after disrespecting our own Queen of Pop.
Well that’s just it, we wouldn’t, at least not with direct taxpayer dollars. Stadiums in other large North American cities are built to host major league sports (disregarding the corrupt US college sports cartel), and are usually funded by consortia along with local or state bond issues and often benefitting from other government concessions and perks, but they are almost never financed by direct government (ie public) investment. 50,000-seat amphitheatres in North America are simply not built by governments to attract “special events”. It’s a bizarre concept to keep spending public money on major league sports venues without full-time, major league sports teams occupying them!
We saw with the Bronfman baseball stadium saga that building a new stadium is not an easy game. We would end up with a stadium built somewhere in the suburbs as the available land on the Montréal island is either not big enough or deserves a more productive vocation like housing.
Except the issue is much more nuanced than this. We’re not talking about a new stadium here, but rather an infrastructure that already exists, generates $70M revenue annually and requires upkeep and a solution to the roof issue.
Faced with options (as outlined in most publications on the topic recently),
we can do nothing and let it fall into disrepair (and kick the can to a future government),
we can demolish it for some outrageous amount (I know people have tried to discredit this, but the fact is that the engineering of this stadium is pretty unique in the world… that’s what got us into this mess in the first place).
we can renovate it to generate more revenue and economic activity around it…
Do you really think no one analyzed all three options? There’s also so many qualitative factors. It’s actually a good thing to have that kind of infrastructure in our province, it’s a tourist attraction, it now sits in the middle of a destination area (Espace pour la Vie).
As I said. It’s more nuanced than “no stadium should be subsidized if not for a sports team”.
Tous les partis (sauf QS) ont eu le dossier du stade dans leurs mains à un moment ou un autre. Ça explique pourquoi ce projet semble passer unanimement à l’assemblée nationale haha.
