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| Children's site is something like 190m x 220 m |
We popped this into the blender that is Chimples' the superintelligent Chimps' superintelligence chip and got this.
Advantages
Great location near Atwater metro, west side of town.
-Demolishing the building and selling the land would answer nagging questions concerning what should be done with the old decommissioned building.
-Purchasing the land might be considerably easier than at other sites considering that much of it already belongs to government.
-It's right at the Atwater metro station, so public transit would be impeccable.
-It would rejuvenate a part of town that has become increasingly rough since the departure of the Canadiens from the Old Forum.
Disadvantages
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| Bridge & Wellington |
-Cabot Square would be lost, as would a couple of buildings on Closse south of St. Cat.
-There would be no parking anywhere.
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| Children's site |
In comparison, the land near Wellington and Bridge has a major size advantage, even though it's far from public transit and might be hampered by heavy traffic trying to get to the Victoria Bridge.
Here's a better idea:
ReplyDeleteBulldoze Dorchester Square and cram the new stadium on top of it. But then, of course, we'll still more need parking space for every idiot who cannot bear the notion of using public transit, so we'll have to demolish the Sunlife Building as well and, while we're at it, knock down the Dominion Square Building and the Marriott Chateau Champlain. Wow, just think of all that extra parking space the city could obtain revenue from!
Of course, we'll need new underground tunnels to connect everything together, which means endless excavation, street closures, re-routed downtown traffic, dust, noise, inconvenience--precisely what we need to maintain Montreal's status as the World's Worst Construction Site.
Yes, I am being facetious.
Seriously: forget about a downtown stadium. What is all of this compulsion--indeed, obsession--to want to jam everything into half a square mile of prime real estate, anyway? More importantly, who exactly are the chief perpetrators of this idea? "Special Interest" groups, to be sure.
If the Olympic Stadium is indeed scheduled to be upgraded once again (!), then by all means use it for baseball again.
Can anyone truly imagine the Big O being blown up in a cloud of dust, only to be replaced by what would most assuredly be a another corruption-ridden boondoggle? We would have to be out of our minds to expect taxpayers to foot the bill and sit back as the world laughs at how stupid we were to have deliberately wandered once again into such a quagmire.
But aren't we getting way ahead of ourselves here? What guarantees would we have that a new Expos team would even obtain enough star players to place it at the top of the league? None. Could a consistently-losing Expos team survive another round of the sinister subterfuge by greedy, chuckling hatchetmen which moved the original team to a U.S. city? We'd be left with another seldom-used empty stadium slowly crumbling with the passage of time--again.
And then we have to shake our heads at those grinning former Expos players who apparently cannot wait to see us taxpayers soaked for the bill. Would THEY be prepared to donate their OWN money? What a laugh. There simply aren't enough Quebec and Canadian philanthropists capable or willing to finance such a project even if they wanted to.
Isn't the return of the Quebec Nordiques a priority? This seems to have been conveniently forgotten, never mind that there is still no guarantee this will ever happen, either.
No, the New Colisee Pepsi--which, cost $400 million and, by the way, is NOT downtown--will sit and wait.
Dreaming costs nothing, it's true, so let us predict for the moment that once Quebec's budget manages to attain a healthy surplus over the next few years and that we do find the cash to fund the return of baseball to Montreal, then I suggest if they simply cannot stomach the notion of re-using the Big O, that they put a new, multi-purpose stadium not downtown, but far away from traffic congestion--say in Laval: a prime spot being at the southwest intersection of Autoroute 15 and Blvd. St. Martin (see Google map link below), right over the former quarry which could be much less expensively reconfigured as the stadium's foundation and as a virtually ready-made underground parking space.
Google map: https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.5581119,-73.7363767,15z
Beyond all of this speculation, however, is that Montreal is first and foremost a hockey town and that baseball can never create the same moment-by-moment excitement.
See: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/is-baseball-really-boring-020515
And: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/baseball-offensive-drought-and-camera-technology/379443/
I agree with much of what you said. I would be perfectly fine to drive to Boisbriand and don't even hate the Olympic Stadium. in a perfect world a downtown stadium would be amazing though. Bridge and Wellington has a great view of the skyline, that's my favourite.
ReplyDeleteAs for being competitive, we could do the moneyball thing like Oakland and Pittsburgh, which both do ok both competitively and financially (payroll tax) with low budget teams.
The idea that Montreal is only a hockey team has been disproved by about 100 years of thriving baseball here.
The Children's Hospital location would be a great way to revitalize that languishing portion of St-Cat, for sure, and I'm sure a ballpark could be shoe-horned into the space.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about the Wellington/Bridge location, though, is that it dovetails very nicely with a bunch of other potential/rumoured government projects, most notably getting a tramway in place down to Griffintown and environs, not to mention whatever the current plans are for the Bpnaventure (blow it up?).
The Big O, unfortunately, really could not work, though some portion of the reason why is simply the taint of history, not actual practical issues with the building.
There are practical issues, however. Baseball in 2015 is simply not played in facilities of that size. That alone would be enough to disqualify the location. As well, although some of the areas near the Big O have been substantially revitalized since the bad old days, there's still not enough nearby to not repel everyone as soon as a game wraps up. In Montreal, people may way to go see a game, but after the game they want to be able to stroll out and grab a drink or a late night meal, not just high-tail it out to the suburbs. That's not possible at the Big O and I don't ever see it being possible there.
Bridge and Wellington? Not sure the associated properties would become available for a reasonable price by those who presently own them, keeping in mind the infamous fiasco regarding the Jacques Cartier Bridge and Mr. Hector Barsalou.
ReplyDeleteSee: http://www.memorablemontreal.com/accessibleQA/en/bridges/?id=173&menu=histoire
Thus, you can be sure that the landlords owning the land adjacent to Bridge and Wellington are counting the days when the bottom end of Guy Street is connected to the top end of Bridge Street--an inevitable project which has been kept quietly in the shadows for decades until the recent demolition of the Canada Post sorting station clearly shows that the "secret plan" has been creeping along inch by inch with fewer structures than ever before remaining to block it.
See the Google Satellite Map:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4884045,-73.563193,571m/data=!3m1!1e3
Filed under "personal pipe dream"
ReplyDeleteBRING THEM HOME TO JARRY PARK!
(Not that I want this to happen, I like Jarry Park the way it is.)
What should happen with the MCH? Demolish the A, B, and C blocks as they have no heritage value; replace with green space. The D, E, F make up what was the old Western General Hospital, and it should stay. Dawson might want it since they're perpetually overcrowded.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely NO public money (not one nickel) should have anything to do with wooing MLB back here. All levels of govt must place as much daylight as possible between themselves and pro sports.
Also, MLB has a rule that publicly traded companies (eg. Bell) cannot be owners of a team. Only individuals and groups thereof.
I'm ok with some public money going to this. Quebec City got an arena so we could get $400M from the province too.
ReplyDeleteSchools always want more space. Dawson already has a big facility let them build on campus if they need more.
Rogers owns the Jays and thats a publicly traded company. They could own the stadium if not the team anyway
If we are going to pave over a public square for a stadium, couldn't it be Berri? "Émilie-Gamelin Field". Rolls of the tongue no? Also adjacent to a Metro stop and also in a neighborhood that badly needs revitalizing.
ReplyDeleteI may someday enter municipal politics for the sole purpose of erasing Berri Square. Cabot square is a good second choice though. The former residents are all sitting in the Alexis Nihon McDonalds waiting for their multi-million dollar restoration to be finished.
If it weren't for the new condos and office towers nearby, why not a stadium on top of the Bell Centre? It might have worked a few years ago.
ReplyDelete