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Toronto 2015 Pan American Games

What happened to the supposed Waterfront stadium? was there really actual plans of that happening or was it just a rumor started by that one guy in the first couple of pages?

Are there plans of any new stadiums (60,000+ seating capacity) being built for these Pan Am games and future games?
 
Plat said:
What happened to the supposed Waterfront stadium? was there really actual plans of that happening or was it just a rumor started by that one guy in the first couple of pages?

Are there plans of any new stadiums (60,000+ seating capacity) being built for these Pan Am games and future games?
Click to expand...

How many stadiums do we need in this city?
 
If the city ever wants an NFL team (we've debated whether that will ever happen in this thread and others) then it will need another stadium. Skydome isn't big enough and any new team would rather have a new stadium than try to fit in a heavily renovated/reconfigured 30 year old stadium (well 30, by the time they realistically might get a team).
 
The Argos former owners were always looking for a way out of the SkyDome, because being there they don't get any money from the lucrative box seats, etc. I doubt the new owner Braley is as interested in building a new home for his team, given the fact that the BC Lions still play in BC Place.

Oddly enough though, I think we are quickly running out of building sites downtown that would be large enough for a NFL or Olympic-sized stadium. With the portlands, the east bayfront, and the railyards being developed, there isn't the same large swath of land downtown as there was when SkyDome was built. CFL-sized stadium is a different story, but if there is a large stadium in Toronto's future, it may have to be somewhere like Downsview.
 
NFL football fans like their stadiums to be a bit outside of downtown anyway, don't they? Somewhere that has a massive parking lot around it where they can drink Bud Light and eat roast pig and hold farting competitions or whatever.
 
^ haha... nice. You're right though, I think if you took a survey, the majority of NFL stadiums would be in the 'burbs and surrounded by parking. Never really understood the tailgate thing... why can't they just surround the stadium with a nice park with BBQs and such? that would be so much cooler.
 
jswag said:
^ haha... nice. You're right though, I think if you took a survey, the majority of NFL stadiums would be in the 'burbs and surrounded by parking. Never really understood the tailgate thing... why can't they just surround the stadium with a nice park with BBQs and such? that would be so much cooler.
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'cause big trucks and diesel fumes are part of the experience!
 
It's not so much that stadiums are placed out in the middle of nowhere because of tailgating. It's because they're in the middle of nowhere that people tailgate. They're in the middle of nowhere because land values are usually super cheap out there, and there's a need for huge swaths of parking because anywhere from 60-80000 people (well 100k+ with the new Cowboys Stadium) attend the games. Most US cities don't have great transit systems, and the ones that do (like New York) don't really have the space for downtown football stadiums.

I don't think you need the stadium to be in the middle of nowhere, especially in Toronto where drinking in public is illegal. So the whole tailgating experience might not matter here. It might just mean that any potential team will have to find a creative means of making the gameday experience as good as their American counterparts. Personally, I'd hope the police/government would be relaxed about public drinking, as they are at BMO when some people tailgate pre- and post game. Then just close off the streets around the stadium on gameday and make it a large type of beer garden.

And the reason people bring big trucks is because they need someway to transport the BBQs and whatever else they want to bring. A lot of people bring RVs too. I've been tailgating in Buffalo and a couple BBQs in a park wouldn't be enough to satisfy people. Literally everyone brings some sort of grill and you'd be surprised by the creative contraptions you see (think removed trunks of cars acting as grills...)
 
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jn_12 said:
It's not so much that stadiums are placed out in the middle of nowhere because of tailgating. It's because they're in the middle of nowhere that people tailgate. They're in the middle of nowhere because land values are usually super cheap out there, and there's a need for huge swaths of parking because anywhere from 60-80000 people (well 100k+ with the new Cowboys Stadium) attend the games. Most US cities don't have great transit systems, and the ones that do (like New York) don't really have the space for downtown football stadiums.

I don't think you need the stadium to be in the middle of nowhere, especially in Toronto where drinking in public is illegal. So the whole tailgating experience might not matter here. It might just mean that any potential team will have to find a creative means of making the gameday experience as good as their American counterparts. Personally, I'd hope the police/government would be relaxed about public drinking, as they are at BMO when some people tailgate pre- and post game. Then just close off the streets around the stadium on gameday and make it a large type of beer garden.

And the reason people bring big trucks is because they need someway to transport the BBQs and whatever else they want to bring. A lot of people bring RVs too. I've been tailgating in Buffalo and a couple BBQs in a park wouldn't be enough to satisfy people. Literally everyone brings some sort of grill and you'd be surprised by the creative contraptions you see (think removed trunks of cars acting as grills...)
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We are getting pretty far from the PanAm games discussion here but I will throw my 2 cents in.

The NFL is a bit different from other north american sports leagues in that their games are once a week and, often, at the same time on the same day every week. So they have less need to be downtown. The games with more variable and intense schedules need to be nearer the core to allow the massive number of their fans who work there to have easy access to the stadium. The NFL has the majority of games on Sunday afternoons when most people are not at work so being in the core offers no advantage and the wide open spaces of suburbia offer the cost, size and design flexibility that the core cannot.....the art is finding the right suburb that is reasonably accessible (by car for the most part) from the most other places. In Toronto I would bet that would be an inner burb like Downsview or a near outer burb like Woodbine RaceTrack area.

As for tailgating. I like a drink or 2 myself.....what I don't like and can't condone is drinking and driving. Tailgating (otherwise defined as driving to a parking lot, spending the entire day eating and drinking) seems to be a tacit condoning of mixing drinking and driving. I would only support its introduction here if it were limited to one of the massive parking lots and if there was signage going in that drivers acknowledge that they are entering a lot with public consumption of alcohol permitted and that by doing so they agreed that EVERY driver leaving that lot would be subject to a breathe test before entering the public roadways.

Interestingly, though, I recently read an article that indicated several US teams (not cities but the teams) are clamping down on tailgating and using the whole issue of public drunkeness and impaired driving as an excuse to do so.....the real reason, however, is that people who spend the whole day drinking in the parking lot are less likely to buy beer at the concession stands.
 
jswag said:
CFL-sized stadium is a different story, but if there is a large stadium in Toronto's future, it may have to be somewhere like Downsview.
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There was a proposal to build Skydome at Downsview...

Ironically, it would have been the same distance from the subway as it currently is.

20090613downsviewplan.jpg
 
Downsview makes A ton of sense... It would help the park get built.. Its close to public transit. And its in the centre of the city with easy access by Highway... Id rather it at the CNE grounds but I would be equally happy with it here.... We would need an olympics tho to justify building a NFL stadium tho.
 
sixrings said:
Downsview makes A ton of sense... It would help the park get built.. Its close to public transit. And its in the centre of the city with easy access by Highway... Id rather it at the CNE grounds but I would be equally happy with it here.... We would need an olympics tho to justify building a NFL stadium tho.
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Either site (Downsview or Woodbine) work for NFL purposes....there are two things needed to justify building an NFL stadium, no? Wouldn't it be good to have the NFL if we were gonna build a stadium for the NFL?
 
I propose that any new Olympic stadium be temporarily upsized for the games, downsized afterward, and given/leased/whatever to the Argonauts (you know, a team that's already here). This would reduce costs, and guarantee it's use post-Olympics.

And after all, if it wasn't for the spark provided by the Argos and the CFL, the Dome either never would have been built, or would have been finished years later.
 
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