City Says Yes To Next Steps In Arena Process

By: Nick Liard

In June we will find out where the city thinks a new arena or event centre will go as council voted in favour of taking the next steps last night.

Council voted 11-2 which now allows PWC Consulting to evaluate 15 different sites, negotiate lease terms with the Sudbury Wolves, develop a financing strategy and draft a document for selection of an operator.

Ward 1 Councillor Mark Signoretti says councils in the past have not gone ahead for whatever reason and seeing the economic impact it could have and has had in other communities, now is the time.

Ward 10 Councillor Fern Cormier said voting it down at this point would only get half of the information to be able to make a final decision.

While Ward 5 Councillor Robert Kirwan was unhappy there’s a chance the city would have to pay for the full price tag.

The next steps will be to approve or reject what PWC comes back with.

Phase one from PWC suggests the new event centre would be 5,800 seats and costs around 80 million dollars, where it will go will be decided in June.