Tom Mayenknecht
Sun
VANCOUVER SUN FILES Railway lands east of the Seabus terminal and Waterfront station the proposed site for Whitecaps’ stadium.
If politicians at all three levels of government are truly committed to making the most of their already significant investment and interest in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, they will not only support the Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium project, they’ll do everything they can to facilitate it as soon as possible.
That’s because making the most of their infrastructure investments far transcends the obvious goal of staging a successful Olympics and Paralympics in February and March of 2010. The true political benefits will be the longer-term economic influences of 2010 — and those will be maximized only by capitalizing on private sector leadership and investment, such as that shown by Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot and his entire organization.
Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium is one of those projects that could be done optimally if it is executed as part of the comprehensive vision for 2010. Improving the Sea to Sky Highway, the RAV rapid transit line and the Vancouver convention centre expansion have been on the podium from the outset. With the right partnerships, the new stadium could serve as the catalyst for positive spinoffs in the areas it touches, Gastown and the Downtown Eastside.
The more in place by 2010, the greater the long-term impact for Vancouver as Canada‘s gateway to the Pacific. The stadium application deserves expedience for a number of reasons.
First, Vancouver needs an outdoor stadium of this size (or larger) — it is the only one of Canada‘s top five cities without one. Second, Kerfoot has already acquired the land for an estimated $20 million. Third, his stadium project is smartly designed above the existing railway lands so as to preserve the lines. Fourth, the plan calls for multi-purpose use and at least 80 events per year. Fifth, his organization has the human capital to pull it off, led by Canadian soccer icon Bobby Lenarduzzi and president John Rocha, who at Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment was a primary architect of the marketing and sales strategies that have led to 90 consecutive sellouts at General Motors Place for the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks. Sixth, Kerfoot’s own tremendous vision, selflessness and integrity add considerable value to the project for what it really is — direct community investment that invokes comparisons with what Paul Allen has contributed in Seattle (with government support.)
Yet the most important reason for fast-tracking is the city of Vancouver‘s own proven capacity for ensuring that the project serves the community. With Larry Beasley at the helm, the city’s planning department has gained international recognition for what it has done to facilitate the conversion of industrial brownfields and rail lands into urban jewels such as Yaletown. Kerfoot’s project seems a perfect fit for “Vancouverism” and stands to be another feather in the cap of city planners, particularly given what they could plan around it in “Gastown Shores.”
Those same municipal planners need not look far to see the benefits to urban renewal of strategically situated stadium projects (witness Arthur Griffiths’s vision in building General Motors Place on the small footprint beside BC Place and the impact it has had on the increasingly dynamic downtown entertainment district.)
Two hours down Interstate 5 in Seattle, Safeco Field and Qwest Field have transformed industrial land and revitalized SoDo (South Downtown). In San Francisco, Pacific Bell Park has been a terrific catalyst for the eastern perimeter and waterfront of the downtown core.
The Rogers Centre opened as SkyDome in 1989 on rail lands in the southwest quadrant of downtown Toronto. That quadrant has gone on to become its primary entertainment district, with industrial space and warehouses replaced by many of the city’s most popular restaurants and clubs.
In Australia, Sydney had similar good fortune when a series of private initiatives combined with good public planning and government incentives in the years leading to the 2000 Summer Olympic Games to transform the dilapidated warehouses and industrial port area of Darling Harbour into one of the city’s gems, a mile-long horseshoe of restaurants and patio cafes. In Spain, Barcelona had turned its back on the waterfront until the 1992 Olympics served as the catalyst for revitalizing it with restaurants, bars and cafes.
Vancouver is one of the most naturally beautiful cities in the world and is planning to welcome the world in 2010. Now, Kerfoot and company have stepped up to propose a developmental icon for the north waterfront of the city only metres away from the icon that was created at Canada Place 20 years ago for Expo 86 and perfectly complementing the future Convention Centre just west of the now famous Five Sails.
This is more than a great location for a soccer stadium. This is about fully integrated public policy-making and the revitalization of downtown industrial land into beautiful waterfront space. The project will not only invigorate Gastown and the Downtown East side, it will create another larger entertainment corridor on the waterfront; one with the potential to become the city’s best seawall and its finest showpiece 24/7.
The gauntlet has been thrown down, not only for like-minded entrepreneurs, private sector visionaries and community investors, but for all three levels of government to make a good idea even better.
The sooner it happens, the better.
Tom Mayenknecht is a Vancouver-based communications consultant.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005