For many years there has been a segment of our city that wants us to build a state-of-the-art convention centre where we can have a central place for big-name concerts and the performing arts. Some are saying that we should combine this facility to include a large arena and make it a true multi-purpose complex.

The problem is that we simply do not have enough money to do this on our own and in order to get the private sector to get involved, we need to make a business-case for them to get a good return on their money while the City produces revenue as well.

I don't think anyone would disagree that a facility such as this would greatly enhance the image of the City of Greater Sudbury and would help us attract some big name entertainers. But just because we would like it to happen is no reason for City Council to rush blindly ahead and spend any money on a project this size without doing a great deal of research and having partners in the wings before we start.

One of the positions I take is that whatever we build should be able to hold a crowd of at least 10,000 people. It makes no sense to build something like our current arena with seating capacity of only 5000. It also has to be in a central location with a huge amount of parking space, which means that it likely should be located on the outskirts of the city and not in the downtown where parking would be a problem.

I can see us doing some investigating as to the feasibility of such a complex during the next term of council, but I don't think we are in much of a position to start breaking ground quite yet. The bottom line is that the City of Greater Sudbury would love to have something like this as long as we don't have to increase the user fee rates across the city and as long as the funding is coming from the private sector.

See Robert Kirwan's Web Site