P.G. bid to benefit from Halifax example

Prince George won't have to build a lot of expensive buildings to host the Canada Winter Games. Observers of their bid wondered how they could keep their capital budget so low, but it hinged on copying a plan that Halifax did first for their games (running this coming February), which put all the incoming athletes and coaches and officials in a central athletes village comprised entirely of pre-existing hotels.

This avoids the issue of having to build apartments, townhouses or what-have-you and risk losing money on construction overruns or poor resale following the games.

"We have worked very closely with the Prince George Accommodations Association to ensure we were correct about the spaces we would need for the athletes village," said bid official Colleen Van Mook, the City of Prince George's director of community services. "We also ensured there was still a lot of accommodation properties for all the visitors coming in to stay in Prince George. We know we have enough accommodations. There are enough hotel rooms to go around."

Most of what is to be spent out of the $18 million will be focused on rebuilding Kin 1 and some improvements to Kin 2 and Kin 3. Mayor Dan Rogers, co-chair of the bid committee, said the federal and provincial governments have agreed to pay $3 million each to that budget, with the city picking up the rest of the tab, but with the possibility of acquiring funding partners and grants between now and then to reduce that amount even further.

"It's not going to be a panacea, a bottomless pit of investment money for our facilities," said Rogers, "but (the arena complex) will end up being one of the premier facilities of its kind in Canada that will allow us to bid on other future events as well." Each one adding more economic investment back into the region on top of the $70 million - $90 million expected to come from the Canada Winter Games themselves.

All the local officials stressed that the payoff would come even quicker, in addition to that amount, because test events would need to be held in Prince George prior to the main event in 2015 (dates still to be determined by the national games body) and they will be bidding on still more events post-CWGs probably even before the main event has been completed, so there is a continuum of activity at our local athletic facilities.

It was previous capital investment in places like CN Centre, the Northern Sport Centre, the Otway nordic ski centre, the Outdoor Ice Oval, the Civic Centre and more that helped secure these games in the first place.

It is still not known how these games will affect the tax level of the average Prince George household. Rogers said council has seen the projected figures and approved the expenditure expected by the municipality (operating budget: $14 million, capital budget $12 million). However, sponsorships, private partnerships, other income streams, etc. would improve the bottom line.

The Canada Games Council will send a team to Prince George in late October to begin laying the organizational groundwork. The group formerly known as the bid committee will become a transition team, a host society will then be established, a CEO hired who will control the hiring of a staff (80 to 100 people is the CWG norm) and collecting of volunteer teams for each event and operational facet, and then the all-out blitz on Canada to focus the pride of the nation on northern B.C.