3rd Winnipeg stadium proposal unveiled

Winnipeg businessman David Asper has made yet another pitch for a new stadium for the CFL's Blue Bombers this time at the University of Manitoba.

During halftime Saturday at the University of Manitoba Bison's homecoming game, Asper announced his company, Creswin Properties, had signed a letter of intent with the university on a site at Chancellor Matheson Drive and University Crescent on the university's campus in south Winnipeg.

"We've been able to enter into an agreement with the university to build the new stadium: home of the Bisons, home of the Blue Bombers, in the field just over there," he said to cheers from the crowd.

The $150-million project would include a 30,000-seat CFL stadium that could be expanded to 45,000 seats, similar to one Asper previously proposed.It would be built eight metres below ground with an inflatable bubble to cover the facility during the winter months so that it could be used as an amateur sports complex.

The project would also include a 700-stall parkade, a major upgrade to the university's current stadium and a new, state-of-the-art fitness centre to replace the Frank Kennedy Centre, often called the "Gritty Grotto."

The university will continue to own the land, offering a long-term lease to Creswin Properties, while the facilities would be community-owned and open to all. The complex would be built with no cost to the university.

3rd and long

This is Asper's third proposal for a new stadium: previously rejected projects involved rebuilding on land where the current CanadInns stadium sits in the Polo Park neighbourhood which stalled during negotiations with the government and one in the city's Point Douglas neighbourhood, which Asper said was discarded due to "infrastructure impediments and long-term planning issues."

'The truth is, I'm going to take a significant haircut as a businessman.' David Asper

"I have been on maybe the longest journey possible to get from Polo Park to the University of Manitoba campus," Asper joked.

In this latest proposal, he's doubled the amount of private-sector money he's willing to put into the project to $100 million, and halving the amount of money he wants from the provincial and federal governments to $35 million.

The difference will be made up from the money he expects to eventually make developing a commercial venue on the land currently occupied by the stadium.

"You don't need to remind me the financing issues that we're going to be confronting, but we've been working very closely with lenders, and we obviously believe that it's all doable," Asper said.

"The truth is, I'm going to take a significant haircut as a businessman in what I would otherwise earn at that project and direct it toward the constructing these new facilities at the U of M. Because I'm a businessman, I'd like to try to make a buck, but there's also an altruistic purpose here."

Asper to own team

Part of the deal is that the Blue Bombers, formerly community-owned, will be owned by Asper, whose family controls Canwest Communications. The team will stay in Winnipeg under the deal, Asper said, although the details are still being worked out.

"The team will be owned by me, but if I were to fail, what happens then and there's an agreement that's being worked among all the parties as to what happens then and how can this community be assured that it's never going to be without the Blue Bombers."

U of M president David Barnard welcomed the news.

"Folks coming to football games will feel more comfortable with the university as a place," he said. "It's not something distant and foreign, it's part of the community."

Asper said it was Barnard's idea for the university to theland available, but Barnard was modest.

"Mr. Asper's a generous man," he said. "I think that it's an idea whose time had come. There were conversations, you know, with various people about the project."

Fans approve

Fans at the Bisons game also appeared to love the idea.

"I think it's great. You look at the MTS Centre, you look at the Goldeyes [ballpark], and these are wonderful facilities," said Cathy Burke, who was watching the game with her son.

'These are things for me like, I've got three young boys who are all, a lot of them want to move out and this is the sort of thing they're looking for: they want something new and exciting for Winnipeg."

Mike Delaney, also a football fan, said he talked to Asper just before the announcement.

"We've been hearing this for last two or three years, and it's kept on changing," he said. "But talking to David, [who's] saying it's going to get done I believe him now."

Federal decision after election

Manitoba's senior MP, Vic Toews, said the new plan "merits serious consideration.

"The enhancement of amateur sport facilities, I thought that was important and consistent with some of the positions we've been taking in terms of funding infrastructure," he said.

Any decisions on $15 million in federal funding Asper seeks for the project would not come until after the Oct. 14 federal election, Toews said.

Asper said the city has agreed to sell him the Polo Park location, but that decision is still subject to approval by city council.He expected the redevelopment of the land would generate $7 million to $8 million per year in taxes for the city.

Asper hopes to have shovels in the ground by fall on the project, with the first touchdowns seenin 2010.