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A former city planner is applauding Saskatoon city council’s decision on a location for a new arena.
Alan Wallace, the director of planning for Wallace Insights and former director of planning and development with the City of Saskatoon, said the Midtown Mall parking lot site selected for purchase by the city stood out.
That location rose to the top because of its proximity to other important things.
“There has to be a critical mass of other complementary uses,” Wallace said, noting the retail shopping, services, hotels and conference centre surrounding the chosen location.
Arenas don’t work miracles and putting one in an empty lot without those amenities won’t make other things magically appear around it, Wallace said.
However, for the arena to work, one final piece is needed — the rapid transit system coming in 2025-26. Wallace said the arena and rapid transit system will be co-dependent on each other, with the arena requiring transit options and the transit system needing major stops on its route for success.
Wallace said he feels city staff has done very well throughout the process.
“I think they’re on the right track and I think they’re doing things in a systematic way,” he shared.
The former city planner has seen council do its homework throughout the process; he said they took a trip to survey Edmonton and hired a consultant to look at and give advice on how entertainment districts work. A community group was also formed to give input into various locations.
These are all important steps, Wallace noted, though he does feel the city has made one misstep in its work so far.
“When you have only two sites and one is a clear winner over the other, why go and ask people what they think of both of those sites?” Wallace asked, indicating that public engagement on the arena location was redundant.
When it came to the work of securing a privately owned site — over a space the city might have already owned — Wallace applauded council for not settling on the easier route.
There has been some criticism of council’s approach to the project, with people in Saskatoon calling for more transparency on the project. But Wallace said putting deals like this together is highly complicated and discussions must be done early and in private.
in public immediately. This is usually at the request of the owner. There is a lot of hard work which has gone into securing the best site for the downtown arena. Time to get on with it.
— Alan Wallace (@awallace1961) November 13, 2022
“That’s just the nature of private land development involving a private owner,” he said. “What council has done, though, has secured, I think, agreements to provide the city with the very best location choice and they did the hard work to do that.”
Wallace also waved away concerns around downtown parking and traffic congestion. He said the downtown area has several access and exit points that will relieve pressures on traffic arriving at and departing various events — especially compared to the long waits that attendees face when using the limited entry and exit points at SaskTel Centre now when attending events.
He also noted that people can reach downtown any number of ways — by cycling, walking, driving or using transit.
“You want your downtown to be busy,” Wallace added.
Any downtown event will spike traffic; the issue will be ensuring that congestion can be filtered out of the area effectively.
As for the issue of parking around the arena? It’s “old thinking,” Wallace claimed, referencing arenas in Boston and Winnipeg that do not have any significant amounts of parking nearby.
“Arenas do work without parking,” he said. “Parking will be important but it’s less important in today’s context.”
Wallace sees the next step taking place over the next 12 months as council figures out the issue of financing the arena and entertainment district. He thinks that concern will open up debate.
“Of course, nothing has been built (and) nothing has been designed,” he said. “These are all just important planning steps that shape the entertainment district in the future.”