An op-ed written by Rob Jones of Downtown Sudbury calls Medicine Hat's arena experience a lesson for other communities ( file photo/ CHATNewsToday)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Medicine Hat arena experience ‘a lesson,’ says Ontario op-ed

Jan 25, 2022 | 7:35 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – It’s been a point of contention for some time: the location of the city’s event centre now named Co-op place. Now it is capturing attention all the way in Sudbury Ontario in a new op-ed written by Rob Jones, co-chair of Downtown Sudbury, a business improvement association in the city.

“We have been searching for and looking at all these other examples around the world especially in North America where people have built arenas outside of their downtown and where the success has been. There’s none. Zero. There is no success anywhere that we can find,” he said.

The City of Sudbury is in the process of building its own events centre outside city limits at the Kingsway Entertainment District. Similar to the Box Springs Business Park, the district has plans for a large arena, casino and hotel.

“We found the Medicine Hat story and said, that’s an actual example. We couldn’t believe how it paralleled our situation that for whatever reason councillors are not thinking properly or logically at all about this, and we are about to make the exact same mistake you guys did” he said.

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Jones said ever since Sudbury council voted in support of the new location it has been highly contentious, and rocky for the city. Since its approval in 2017, the Sudbury development has been met with allegations of council bribery, along with a lawsuit from an environmental group.

Jones’s opinion piece, written in the Sudbury Star, highlights the lack of attendance at Medicine Hat’s event centre and the difficulty it has faced attracting the big names. It also mentions the lack of growth at the Box Springs Business Park and how operational costs ballooned to nearly $1 million in annual losses by 2019. That was when ASM Global was the operator for the facility. The City of Medicine Hat confirmed those figures to CHAT News.

“I do recall that there was an expectation that it would be around a $400,000 per year that would have been supported by taxes, and it didn’t meet those targets, and primarily attendance levels weren’t as high as anticipated in the projections, and that also affected the number of events that were held,” stated Brian Mastel, the city’s managing director of public services.

The city took over as operator in 2020. But they were unable to provide any specific details on how much the events centre is costing taxpayers now. Mastel explained that is because they have combined staffing and operational expenses with the Esplanade due to the pandemic.

Coun. Shila Sharps read the article last week and said Medicine Hat’s arena experience could very well serve as a lesson to other communities such as Sudbury.

“The point of having this big event centre was so that the citizens of Medicine Hat could have bigger concerts here bigger names, and we could but it is never full,” she said.

“When we had the Tigers downtown I went to all the games. I went to most of the events, and I know it is silly, I know it is only six minutes down the road depending on how you drive but the reality is, I don’t go, and the one or two times I went it was such an empty feeling and I wish it wasn’t,” she added.

Coun. Allison Knodel, however, offered a much different perspective.

“I think that anytime a community so far away has criticisms they may not know the whole picture,” Knodel said.

“There are so many important things to consider when the is criticism about our community. We had an economic downturn, the oil and gas industry had just crashed, and people were losing jobs and we can’t necessarily fill an arena when there is an economic crisis, and not only that we have moved into the pandemic,” she said

Knodel has high hopes for the arena and believes that it along with the Box Springs Business Park can thrive in the future if the city sustains growth.

“Box Springs Business Park is a space where there is resources and amenities, and I think that the reason why that location was chosen for the arena at the time was because it was a good deal for land and I think the developer (Albert Stark) regularly works with the city, to make sure it is affordable for the community to make progress on development,’ she said.

Albert Stark was unable to provide comment by deadline.

Coun. Andy McGrogan also chimed in on the op-ed and noted that it is easy to place blame on past decisions.

“It went where it went. It is very controversial, I even heard about it on my campaign but it is there. So I think what we need to do as a new council is, how do we support it so it is successful?” he said.

Not speaking on behalf of council McGrogan said an idea could be building around the facility.

Medicine Hat City Council is expected to explore ideas on how to drive more people to the events centre, as they enter strategic planning sessions today.

Meantime, Jones is hoping Medicine Hat’s story can be heard loud and clear in Sudbury.

“We need to hear the screams of other communities saying, ‘don’t do this,’” he said.