Arena to be built privately, but if public money’s available, soccer club will ask for it
John Bermingham
Province
Artist’s concept of the proposed Whitecaps soccer stadium on the Vancouver waterfront.
The group behind the proposed waterfront soccer stadium intends to seek government funding if it gets the thumbs-up from
Vancouver City Council later this month.
Bob Lenarduzzi, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ director of soccer operations, said the Whitecaps own the site for the 15,000-seat arena but would ask for government help in building it — if there’s help to be had.
“If there’s government funding available, we would want to explore that,” Lenarduzzi said yesterday.
“We’re moving forward on the basis it’s a private initiative, but if there’s funding available, we would explore that.”
The Whitecaps have not made any requests for government funding so far, he said.
“If we’re going to be the community asset, the provincial asset, the nation’s asset we think we can be, there may be opportunities for funding.”
Lenarduzzi said it’s too early to guess the stadium’s final cost, but a similar soccer
arena in Toronto has a price tag of $65 million. About $44 million of that came from all three levels of government, including
$28 million from Ottawa.
When the Toronto stadium was in jeopardy, Lenarduzzi said, the Whitecaps offered their stadium to the Canadian Soccer Association as a national soccer arena and inquired if federal funding would transfer to its project.
“It never went beyond that,” he said.
Jon Stovell, who heads a Gastown group opposing the stadium, said the Whitecaps should disclose plans for government money prior to the June 27 council hearing on moving the project forward.
“Seeking public funding in itself is not a problem,” said Stovell.
“The problem is they’ve consistently promoted the stadium based on the fact that it was privately funded and a community asset with no cost to the public.
“If public money is going into the project, there should be a higher level of public involvement in the design of the stadium and the development of an overall plan for the waterfront.”
Stadium supporters recently sent 600
written postcards to city councillors and have collected 2,500 signatures supporting the plan.
Bill Currie of the Friends of Soccer group said 70 per cent of city residents support the stadium.
John Kostiuk, who heads a group of Gastown businesses and residents called Stadium Now, said opponents have been spreading disinformation about the project.
He said drawings of the stadium circulating in Gastown wrongly show the stadium blocking Cambie Street, which is false. The platform the stadium will rest on is seven metres high, not 8.5, he added.
Gastown is split on the stadium, he said, but “we’re finding more and more people are coming out and being supportive.”
© The Vancouver Province 2006
