A decision by Moncton city council to approve construction of a $104 million downtown event centre is being hailed as historic.
“An amazing catalyst for positive change in our city,” says city councillor Dawn Arnold.
Arnold says Wednesday’s decision was 10 years in the making.
“We have had the time to analyze the studies and budget for it and really do our due diligence to ensure that this is a very positive and important decision for the future of our city,” says Arnold.
Resident Peter Dauphinee was at the meeting. He says he's followed the progression of the centre and says too many decisions were made without public input.
“This kind of project should not be rushed,” says Dauphinee. “It should not be done behind chambers. It should be done with a full public debate.”
The downtown business community is thrilled.
“People that know the amount of work that has gone into this and what it means for our downtown are ecstatic about this decision,” says Anne Poirier Basque with the Downtown Moncton Centre-ville Inc.
Of the 11 councillors, eight were for it and three were against, including Brian Hicks.
“It hasn’t been explained to me how we are going to do all of these wonderful things without increasing the tax rate or cutting services,” he says.
The new centre will have a higher ceiling, which will better accommodate concerts. There will be retail and residential components, as well.
Critics say the centre will merely be a big hockey rink with a few other things thrown in. But Arnold says the company operating the centre has proposed about 150 events in a year, with 75 per cent being non-sporting events.
“It will have 9,000 fixed seats and will be able to accommodate more than 10,000 people for concerts and that sort of thing,” she says.
The bulk of the funding has come from all three levels of government.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s David Bell.
