New Winnipeg Stadium

[Winnipeg Fury]

Other options?

Blue, Ex, Canad Corp. to reveal stadium study

By ROSS ROMANIUK, STAFF REPORTER

David Asper has made his pitch for a new stadium for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Today, Winnipeggers will find out what other options -- if any -- exist for the team.

Following more than two years of keeping the public waiting and wondering, the CFL team will join the Red River Exhibition Association and Canad Corp. in releasing the findings of a study they had jointly conducted into the feasibility of a new or upgraded stadium.

Blue Bombers chairman Ken Hildahl refused to tip his hand on whether the $250,000 report -- written by accounting firm Meyers Norris Penny -- makes any firm recommendations for the future of the 54-year-old Canad Inns Stadium or a possible facility to replace it.

'NOT FIRM PROPOSAL'

"It's not a firm proposal of any kind. It's just another possible potential direction. And it's not site-specific. It's just looking at the economics of a facility overall," Hildahl said yesterday, suggesting he's pumped about giving Bombers fans and the public more to talk about.

"Every time we put another issue on the table to discuss, I think that's really positive for the club and the fans."

When the study was announced in December 2004, its proponents pointed to the potential for a $165-million stadium in addition to a Canad Inns hotel and water park at Red River Exhibition Park.

But up to a dozen sites for a possible new 40,000-seat stadium were looked at in the probe, for which half of the $250,000 tab was picked up by taxpayers.

Hildahl refused to give details on locations considered, though he said the former Canada Packers site and Point Douglas in general were on the list "in a very peripheral way," as well as the Maroons Road property.

Asper's Polo Park plan -- which includes a move for the team to private ownership -- was made public last Sunday. He said yesterday he's not concerned about competing proposals.

"I hope that whatever the news is (today) doesn't delay the process," said the executive vice-president of CanWest Global Communications Corp., who wants to throw $40 million of his own into the $120-million project.

Mayor Sam Katz said only that he wants "to hear what they have to say" about other possibilities for the team, whose 29,500-seat stadium is seen as cramped and antiquated.