City of Calgary to publicly release Flames’ arena proposal

The City of Calgary is about to put its hockey team under the microscope.

In response to the Calgary Flames' withdrawal from negotiations to fund a new arena in the city, mayor Naheed Nenshi plans to release each side's proposal to the public.

"I was certainly a little bit surprised because we have been at the table," Nenshi told Shawn Logan of the Calgary Herald. "We didn't get any advance warning of this.

"The city has a very fair offer on the table, one that … most Calgarians will see as eminently reasonable, and there's another offer on the table that most Calgarians will see as imminently unreasonable, and I will have the opportunities to share details of those … in the upcoming days."

According to the Herald, the two separate proposals call for the city and the Flames to each cover one-third of the project costs, with the remainder funded via ticket surcharges.

On Tuesday, Flames president and CEO Ken King stated the team is willing to move away from its original proposal, CalgaryNEXT, to be situated in the city's west village, in favor of a city-preferred Victoria Park location.

A multi-stadium proposal, CalgaryNEXT was unveiled in August 2015 at a projected cost of $890 million, however an April 2016 report issued by the city of Calgary estimated the project would cost more than double that figure, coming in at $1.8 billion.

While Nenshi did not give a date on when he will make the two proposals available for public consumption, he was given the green light to do so Wednesday after city council approved the maneuver.

Calgary is home to the NHL's oldest arena that has not undergone a major renovation, with doors to the Scotiabank Saddledome first opening in 1983.

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