Raise the Hammer

Let me take issue with the points raised.

1. Big enough - It isn't. Yes, you can build a stadium on the footprint. But you can't build anything else... including the transportation infrastructure (parking, walkways, transitways and terminal buildings) that you need. Celtic Park can exist on the (much bigger) footprint it has in Parkhead because it's in Parkhead... it's in a city neighborhood with existing infrastructure (and there is lots of parking around it).

2. Regional team - The Ticats already are a regional team, and would be no matter where you put a stadium.

3. Greenspace - No, this is putting a big building and a lot of concrete and asphalt over green space. I am all for revitalizing the old campground areas - with park, though, not parking.

4. Scenic - A park is scenic but a stadium isn't really a thing that is beautiful. If you're thinking that it would improve the image of the city, it might; but not from the Skyway. Because you won't be able to see it from the Skyway. I mean, you have driven over the Skyway, right? You can't see the proposed site from there.

5. It's not sprawl, OK, I can give you that one. However, it is far from the centre of the city and necessitates longer transportation links than a city-centre project would. And the Stoney Creek Lakeshore is not an area in need of economic development.

6. There is parking but more parking will be needed. There is no on-street parking available because there are no streets. So as others have pointed out, you end up paving over multi-use parkland to build parking spaces.

7. This is an interesting idea, one that I wasn't familiar with and would like to know more about. NEvertheless, a parking lot with grass growing on it isn't a park. It's a parking lot.

8. More expense. Marinas are expensive to build and maintain. Whose expense? The West Harbour location had extensive yachting clubs with extensive marina space already there adjacent to the site.

9. Such a development needs to be built over the existing park. Currently places like Hutch's and Baranga's fit nicely into an existing park. Multiply it by ten and there's no park left - and no natural setting to attract people to, except for ten game days and maybe a few concert events each year.

10. You know what? I will give you that one. I like mixed uses. Confederation Park really isn't mixed-use or residential, it's a park. But there are residential areas not ridiculously far away.

This was a good try, but clearly Confederation Park is an impossible site; far too much value to be poured into a stadium site. If we're getting rid of this land, I'd rather even sell to a developer.