Saskatoon delays release of funding strategy for downtown arena

The city has delayed the release of its funding strategy for the downtown arena district for another two weeks.

In a report to city council on Wednesday, the city’s director of technical services Dan Willems says the city is actively negotiating a contract with a private partner who will operate the future arena and event centre, and ideally help raise funds to build it — they’re just not ready to go public yet.

“It is taking a bit longer than we had expected,” Willems told councillors on Wednesday morning.

Administration had previously committed to finalizing the funding strategy by June or July.

Willems says administrators hoped to have the basic terms of the deal struck by the July 31 council meeting so “the financial implications of the potential private partnership can be considered in the broader financial context of the project.”

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The city’s request for proposals for a private operating partner closed on April 25, and Willems says negotiations with the would-be arena operator began on May 15, although the two parties are still working to establish a framework for a future agreement that would outline the role and responsibilities in full detail.

“Negotiations on the agreement framework are being finalized and an envoy from the proponent is being arranged to attend the formal presentation of these reports,” Willems writes.

Unfortunately, the envoy was unavailable on Wednesday, Willems says.

Presenting his report to council on Wednesday, Willems told councillors the stakes were high in such a long-term agreement.

“This is a long term operating partnership with a significant financial component to it, as well, and it's, it's not something that we want to rush into a bad deal on,” he said.

“So, negotiations have been intensive.”

If negotiations continue to run past the mid-August deadline, administration would still report back on the budget estimate and funding strategy in August, and present the results of the partnership agreement whenever the deal is done.