Developers plan Peel Basin project
Two major developers are said to be close to an agreement on the Peel Basin which would include a new baseball stadium. The mayor is super keen and thinks a REM station could be built for the stadium and the “retour des Expos.”
Insanity, I’m telling you. In general I like Plante, and haven’t made any secret of being pro-Projet, but how can she be deploring homelessness on the one hand, talking up social housing, while applauding a project that will transfer millions in public funds into private hands to move a marginal team here and sustain its activities? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Chris 21:55 on 2019-03-25 Permalink
Be sure to tell her: https://mairesse.montreal.ca/envoyer-un-message-la-mairesse
Faiz Imam 00:01 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
If I want to maintain a positive spin on it, I could note that she’s still against any public involvement in any of this. The land is owned by the federal government who will sell it at market rates, and the developers will build what they want on it.
But yeah… Not sure that’s exactly how it will go. The more this moves along and the more legitimacy this gets, the more room opens for the developers to extort the city into ‘partnering’ with the team.
Also there are loopholes where the team benefits without getting actively subsidized, such as rebates on taxes or investment in infrastructure or ancillary costs.
PS: the REM station is the one near bassin Peel. It’s gonna be built regardless to serve griffintown and old Montreal.
Kate 06:48 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Faiz Imam, I know I’ve said this before, but against any public involvement is meaningless verging on the fraudulent. You cannot have something as big as a stadium without the city’s involvement. It has to provide transit, sanitation and security for free on an ongoing basis from the moment construction begins. And the history of big-league teams in general shows a pattern of teams holding cities to ransom with threats to leave if they don’t get tax breaks and other benefits they demand.
A major league team is first and foremost a device for funneling public money into private hands, using civic pride and boosterism as a lever. The entertainment value is a distant second.
My resistance to baseball has recently been called “hate” and I’ve in the past been accused of shitting on the city because I don’t support it. On the whole, this blog has always been civil. Those are the hardest words I’ve had to face, and it’s over a nonexistent sports team – not over politics, sexuality, language or other hot-button issues. Odd, isn’t it?
JaneyB 07:59 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
@Chris – Thanks! Done. I wonder if the REM folk who are probably pushing it threatened to support putting it in Laval or something. It’s a crazy plan for a hockey-mad city. More rinks for ice time definitely, more soccer stuff maybe but…baseball?
Thomas H 08:47 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
As both someone who both abhors corporate involvement in public affairs and loves baseball, I can’t help but feel conflicted. But it’s no wonder to me that many people, like Kate, feel particularly polarized on this issue based on the amount of vitriol slung by baseball boosters. As Kate and others have pointed out, baseball fans need to put aside blind boosterism and nostalgia.
I feel that Mayor Plante’s bizarre, quiet, and newfound support of the baseball stadium is shrouded in mystery and non-transparency, which really bothers me. First and foremost, as a citizen, but second and distantly as a fan.
And therefore, it pains me to say that I cannot support the baseball stadium or team without exhaustively addressing the issues that have been brought up about public financing. I would want to see a written , contractual commitment from the new franchise to fund both the capital and ongoing costs themselves and the security of the stadium (including paying any SPVM officers assigned to game days) before jumping on the bandwagon.
I do, however, feel compelled to address a few of the anti-baseball arguments I have seen many people advance on this blog. Not necessarily because I support the return of a base franchise (though I have disclosed my bias as a baseball fan), but because I think many opponents of the baseball stadium/team are being too dismissive of the popularity of baseball, and therefore undermining their case.
— Baseball is not an old man’s sport. I am 25 years old, and attended the exhibition game last evening, and just like each of the five years before, the stadium was full of people in their 20s and 30s and MANY young families with kids under 10 years old. All this on a Monday evening. There were old men also, but often accompanied by their younger family members. The make-up of baseball fans in Montreal includes the children of former Expos fans, current Blue Jays fans who may have family in Toronto and already attend games there once or twice a year, and many former Expos fans who have become Red Sox or Yankee fans since the departure of the Expos.
–Baseball games offer a fundamentally different experience than NHL or MLS games. The game moves slower, the overall volume of the stadium is quieter, so it is easier to attend primarily or secondarily as a social function (as I did with many of my non-baseball fan friends last night). It would have been pretty hard to convince my sports-disinterested boyfriend to attend a loud hockey game with me. Baseball games are also a magnitude cheaper than NHL games and therefore more accessible to a wider fan base. I guarantee you that Habs games are whiter, more suburban, and more affluent.
–There is interest in baseball locally, and specifically the former Expos franchise. I have seen consistently for years that Expos merchandise sales (locally, in Canada, and across North America) rank number five through ten after big teams like New York, LA, and Boston, meaning that the brand is selling well ahead of many existing baseball teams.
On the whole, I still cannot support baseball in Montreal until the very legitimate concerns over the public funding are addressed. I would want to see, in writing, that the private backers will not take any form of public funding for a period of 30 or 50 years. But, perhaps it is helpful for opponents of the project (like myself) who are not baseball fans themselves (unlike myself) to see that there is a broad market for baseball in Montreal, and that it’s going to take a bit more than “baseball is for old geezers” jabs to dismantle that. Opponents need to focus more squarely on their very compelling concerns over private involvement in our public affairs and point to the experiences of other cities that have had a raw deal.
Tim 09:18 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Building a stadium without a firm commitment from MLB for a team is a risky proposition. It puts Montreal in a position of weakness from a negotiating point of view. Building a stadium without a team in Quebec City did not bring the Nordiques back.
Blork 10:10 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Speculation: this might just be good politics. If Project Montreal is only known to the less-progressive crowd (who are numerous and love to vote) as the party of expensive parking, bicycle lanes, and other things they find annoying, then this will show at the next election. But if the party can throw a bone to the people who are more concerned with Montreal being “fun” and a great place to live when you have money, then it might help them in the next election.
That might sound cynical, but I think it’s just reality. A government has to serve all of its constituents, and sometimes that means taking backwards steps. But if you have a long-term plan for forward steps then you have to plan for some backwards steps along the way in order to ensure you’re still in the game to make those forward steps.
walkerp 10:36 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Let’s get an NBA team here first. Or maybe WNBA.
Uatu 10:41 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
I dunno about the viability of MLB. I guess if it doesn’t work out then a baseball stadium could be used by a minor league team.
Or maybe they could play cricket .
The family angle mentioned above works now at the big o with lots of parking and space. I wonder if it will be the same when there’s less space to stretch out. The most memorable parts of going to expos games in high school was eating a hotdog with my feet up on the seat in front of me, talking to my friends about girls while a game was going on in the background. Also getting home around midnight via public transit because I lived in Brossard…
In any case it’s in the hands of the young and most young people I know are soccer fans and during yesterday’s Bronfman announcement ,it was hard to see anyone under the age of 40. So there’s that….
DeWolf 11:04 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
I think Blork is right on the politics. There are a lot of people who admired Coderre’s cigar-chomping “big city mayor” persona and the goodies he delivered. They’re usually the same people who blame Plante personally for the fact that we had an icy winter. This could help win them over, especially if Coderre attempts a comeback. “The mayor who brought the Expos back” may be a very good thing to people who aren’t especially invested in municipal politics.
My concern about this is the placement of the REM station. The Bassin Peel station’s location has not yet been fixed. If it is built next to the future stadium, it will anchor a new development area, which would be good for ridership and getting people out of cars. But I have a bad feeling that this project may not come to fruition, in which case we’ll have a REM station marooned in the middle of nowhere, away from the heart of Griffintown where people actually live and need better transit.
mare 11:51 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
@Thomas H
With only a few edits you could let Mayor Plante know via the link above.
@Dewolf I’m sure some developers will propose something else to built there that the Federal government (probably a Conservative gevernement after the next elections) thinks is a good idea. They can dig up that plan for a permanent circus tent for the Cirque de Soleil for instance.
Ian 12:34 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
As somebody who doesn’t give a crap about major league sports I’d be a lot more impressed f they could figure out infrastructure before building new touristy crap that the existing infrastructure can’t support. Call me nuts if you will.
qatzelok 13:10 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
**A too-late spoiler alert**
`Le premier des deux matchs hors concours opposant les Blue Jays de Toronto aux Brewers de Milwaukee a lieu ce soir. La tenue de ces matchs préparatoires au Stade olympique est l’occasion de remettre le retour des Expos dans l’actualité.’
This is just a fake news advertorial for another Paid-ticket event.
Vazken 16:08 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
I love the Expos and I would love to see a return but only if no public money is used other then what the city would have to kick in normally. Also, the spending in baseball is out of control and I can’t see the expos competing with 40 million a year contracts unless there’s a REALLY deep pocketed owner.
A NBA team sounds like a good idea, they have a stadium built already. (yes, salary is out of control there too)
Faiz Imam 17:48 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Hey Kate. I don’t know what it is about the way I write that gets me so misunderstood, but it’s happened again.
the first paragraph of my comment above was designed to be overly, unrealistically charitable to set up the rest of my point, which was that I fear this is a slippery slope towards more and more of a public investment.
I agree with you 100% that if this happens, the city will inevitably be entangled in it and that it will go poorly. Not to mention a noon-multifunctional stadium is huge waste of space in that area with such high density and so much missing features(school, community service, green space)
Also, I used the term “hate” a few days ago and It was not targeted towards you AT ALL. I was actually replying 100% to Uatu and to what I perceived was a attack on the sport of baseball as a whole. Hence my use of jays and league wide statistics to defend the game. Same as Thomas did above.
Going back to that comment, looks like they were talking about Montreal specifically, so my use of words was unwarranted.
Not sure what other reactions you’ve been getting, but I really don’t want my part in this to be misunderstood.
Kate 19:57 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Faiz Imam, thanks for the clarifications, and no worries.
Blork and DeWolf, that’s canny analysis. Plante may be perfectly well aware there won’t be another MLB team here but that looking keen on the idea may bear fruit. Thanks for helping me see it that way.
Chris 20:50 on 2019-03-26 Permalink
Blork, the party of bicycle lanes? They’ve done just about nothing in that department.
Blork 09:58 on 2019-03-27 Permalink
Chris, from the point of view of the “less progressives” it’s less about what they’ve done and not done and more about the perception.
Marc 10:22 on 2019-03-27 Permalink
I was curious if a new team could call themselves the Expos and use the old logo and came across this article for anyone interested. https://everythingtrademarks.com/2015/09/05/you-can-go-home-again/
Morgan 14:56 on 2019-03-27 Permalink
@Dewolf et al, I saw that Plante said it would be relatively easy to add another REM station to serve the new stadium because it’s an above-ground system. I get the impression they may not build the station now, but maybe could lay the foundations or at least make sure there will be space for it.
(I believe this would be a second station in addition to the currently-planned Bassin Peel one, which I’m guessing will be in Griffintown).
There’s going to be significant development in that area in the next 10 years, stadium or not, so it would make sense to plan for it.