Whitecaps Stadium Progress

[VPjr]

a TRUE waterfront stadium would be pretty damn cool. I really hope it goes through, the Whitecaps join MLS and TFC makes them their whipping boys....

[Grizzly]

It is a good thing for the southsiders that the south side is on land. Otherwise the southsiders would be drowned in water as opposed to their more usual drowned in beer.

[JamesW]

quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

And how exactly do you expand something like that? Maybe expansion was never in the origional plans anyway but ho-bhoy, water is water.

I had read on the stadium website that the plan was to make it 15,000 and they would be able to go all the way upto 30,000.

[Vancouversoccerman]

From Friends of Soccer:

Council Votes Unanimously to Move Revised Stadium Site Forward!

Once again, Vancouver City Council has voted unanimously to proceed with the Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium. After listening to 15 speakers, which included presentations from the Whitecaps, Friends of Soccer and Stadium Now!, Council made the decision to adapt the latest City Staff report and to begin a new round of public consultation. If all goes well, the city could send the stadium project to a formal rezoning process by June, and construction could be completed in time for the 2010 Olympics.

During the council session, the handful of stadium opponents mostly rehashed issues that were addressed in the previous hearings. However, City Council raised concerns about the effects the revised waterfront stadium site would have on the Seabus Terminal, as well as the need for the Whitecaps and the Port to reach agreement with federal government agencies. These are among the issues that will be addressed in the upcoming Open Houses and Public Hearings.

As the stadium moves a step closer, your support becomes even more important. Council mentioned more than once the broad public support the stadium project has received, and it's because the Citizens of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland have stepped up to the plate to let them know. To find out more on how you can support the Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium, visit www.friendsofsoccer.org

[pulsar]

Well, a positive step for the stadium. I was down at the publice viewing 2 years back and the protesters there, were basically professional protesters. One guy was screaming " why can't they play at GM PLace ( where the canucks play). I don't have a violent bone in my body but right then and there i wanted to pound him based on his ignorence. Vancouvers ability to openly discus and bring subjects to publice viewing is as much a downfall as it is a benefit. So much money must change hands before anything gets approved. This stadium should have been ready for the u20 worlds this year. No other city/country in the world would have this much red tape to wade through. I can understand the proposed move because of the danger of a toxic spill but Mr. Kerfoot should have had an easier ride. He is the ony person in Canada ( that I know of) who is doing anything to promote soccer in this country. Thanks for letting me rant.

[Richard]

The City of Vancouver has not the slightest interest in promoting soccer per se, only to the extent it might stimulate the local economy and bring in tax dollars.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

When I get time I am going to write, as the way we do such consultations has some serious holes in Canada. We end up reviewing and revising and redoing until the originally planned set of unified criteria are smashed to pieces. This is the fault of planners, who end up piecemealing everything and are never held responsible for higher values, bascially because the politicians have no criteria beyond getting past local pressure groups, and the architects have a weak public conscience and public voice.

The basic problem is this: the stadium should be functional and safe and well connected and amenable to local interests, I agree: but it should also have design values and symbolic values, precisely because that is what large public buildings in contemporary cities can give you, a surplus value beyond functionality. Canada Place is an example, but we have too few such examples in Canada in general, the vast majority of public buildings are weak symbolically. Some public schools and the odd firestation, library, university building, do get past this. And why is it important? Because the idea is not just to fill a city with functionality laid over functionality, but along with this meaning over meaning, so you are communicating something, about the quality of your city, the importance of the activity to be had, your idea of public space as a shared space, as a common value. Which done right gives you postcard views, gets tourists and others to visit, is attractive to cameras when games are shown on tv, and makes you proud to be there and be associated with such a place. Since we have virtually no stadiums with the charm and symbolic power of those with a long history, like an Anfield (which is in fact, architecturally, a big nothing and terribly located to boot), we have to do what countries building new stadiums do, which is use them to show off the best of themeselves, their design, their modernity, their ambition, their intelligence.

For Vancouver planners and politicians such questions are mostly lost on them, as it has pretty well always been the case in the city, always given over to letting the higher meaning be derived from trees and sea and mountains and rarely from anything man has ever come up with.