What are you doing with these arenas Welland? Not one, but two different arena gaffes in the same week. Yikes.
Let’s tackle these things one at a time. First up, naming rights. I am all for municipalities selling naming rights to arenas and parks and splashpads or whatever else they can convince someone to slap their name on. You wanna unveil the Scotiabank Washroom down at the beach? Go for it. The Meridian Fire Station? Sure, do it.
But when we start letting developers purchase naming rights, that’s when the water starts to muddy too much for my liking. The relationship between city halls and developers is already plenty shady—we don’t need the prospect of a ‘scratch my back, we scratch yours’ situation making it even more sketchy.
Selling the naming rights to CIBC is fine because CIBC is never going to come to city hall asking for something. Selling the naming rights to a developer is a whole different beast because developers are in the business of coming to city hall to ask for favours.
A variance on the size of lot coverage, a reduction in the number of required parking spaces, a favourable tax assessment through the Community Improvement Program—nary a council meeting goes by in Niagara without a developer on the agenda seeking some sort of financially incentivized handout from council.
Which is why I raised my eyebrows when I read about a Burlington-based housing developer, LIV Communities, cutting a half-million-dollar cheque to Welland City Hall in exchange for the naming rights to their arena. For one thing, a housing developer just having a spare $500,000 to splash around should probably tell us something about who is benefiting the most from our current housing crisis. The other thing is a question: Would LIV Communities really be shelling out a half milly to Welland City Hall if they didn’t expect some return on that investment?
The relationship between city halls and developers is already plenty shady
Welland councillors sure are putting themselves in an awkward position next time LIV comes knocking to ask for a favour.
As crazy as that situation is, it’s only the second weirdest Welland arena story in recent weeks. The story of them spending more than $100,000 on an “arena feasibility study” is the one that takes the cake.
I know I harp on this too much, but I can’t help myself. I’m going to do it again: stop with all these nonsense, money wasting, faux-transparency “studies” and “engagement sessions” and “public consultations.” It’s all a big scam that serves to only line the pockets of pointless consulting firms.
Welland has two arenas, both of which pre-date the moon landing. At 57-years-old and 78-years-old, it’s pretty clear to any normal person that both arenas have gotta be nearing the end of their lifespan. That’s just common sense right? Wrong, apparently.
Because Welland has decided it needs to drop six-figures on a “feasibility study” to figure out if they need to think about maybe starting to one day build a new arena.
Here’s a hot tip: Yes, you do.
When both of your arenas were built when asbestos was still the hot new construction technology, it’s high time to consider a rebuild.
If Welland was smart, they would take every penny of that $100,000 being thrown down the feasibility study toilet and set it aside in an arena reserved fund to be used on the inevitable construction of new arenas.
But hey, what the heck do I know about any of this, I was but a mere negative-39-years-old when Welland built its main arena.
James Culic’s old man is still eight years younger than the Welland arena. Find out how to yell at him (James, not his dad) at the bottom of this page, or study the feasibility of public feedback by sending us a feasibly reasonable letter to the editor.
