If this is what’s next for Calgary, count me out.

Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. — parent group of the Flames, Stampeders, Hitmen, and Roughnecks — unveiled Tuesday the design for CalgaryNEXT, their much-ballyhooed, much-anticipated grand scheme for new professional sports facilities to house their franchises.

It came after a controversial debate over public funding for an arena in Edmonton. It came after Calgary’s mayor and entire city council staunchly harrumphed at the notion that a hugely profitable entity like CSE would get a penny of public money for a sure-fire business investment.

So they had to sell it. Make no mistake, CSE’s public pitchman and CEO Ken King knew full well this was their grand bid to the people of Calgary for a loosening of the public purse strings.

The pretty slides and maps and renderings showing the arena-stadium-fieldhouse complex on greatly-improved lands near downtown —- which currently host a dilapidated bus depot and car dealerships -— were surely meant to soften us up for the coming hit that would rival a tackle from Juwan Simpson or a punch from Deryk Engelland.

Twenty-three per cent. That is the contribution that the Flames, Stamps et. al. envision themselves ponying up for this project. More specifically, $200 million out of an estimated (surely low-balled) total of $890 million. The remainder would come from the City ($200 million), a ticket tax ($250 million) and a community revitalization levy ($240 million).

(And since their proposal doesn’t include cleaning up the creosote-contaminated lands, we can assume that’s another $200 million-ish of public money they’d like.)

Let’s talk about that last one. The idea of a CRL is that all these new buildings and businesses that sprout up around this new development will pay additional tax, so let’s just put that revenue towards the development (often in the form of debt repayments).

Twenty-three per cent. That is the contribution that the Flames, Stamps et. al. envision themselves ponying up for this project.

Calgary used this mechanism in developing the East Village. It’s controversial. Regardless of how you package it, in the end it’s a form of public money that could go elsewhere. The argument is, “Well, that tax revenue wouldn’t be there if we didn’t build this project.”

Except that studies have shown that these types of projects often only revitalize urban areas in the sense that they draw planned investment away from other parts of the city. And in this case the people profiting from the public money aren’t even funding a quarter of of the project.

It’s also worth questioning whether CalgaryNEXT is more desirable an outcome than the City’s current tentative design for the area, which aims to create a complete community rather than a sports megaplex. The renderings of those plans show quiet, walkable streets of offices and cafés and residences, none of which would disrupt the surrounding established communities with thousands of drunken fans.

Some people will like the design that CSE is proposing. That’s fine. There’s a worthy civic debate to be had over the best use for the West Village lands, which represent a blank slate upon which we can add to our great inner city.

But for the six extremely wealthy men who own CSE to say they will pay 23 per cent of a mega-project that will undoubtedly make them wealthier still — that is something none of us should tolerate. Two of the men, billionaires Murray Edwards and Clayton Riddell, have a combined fortune of $4.8 billion according to Forbes. The Flames are the 13th-most-valuable team in the NHL, worth $451 million, and they are just one of the teams that will benefit from this project.

Meanwhile, Calgary lacks a dedicated cancer centre, adequate drug rehab facilities, social services and sufficient affordable housing, to say nothing of funding for truely and broadly beneficial infrastructure such as the Green Line LRT.

The fieldhouse component of the project would be a wonderful civic asset. That’s probably why the City was planning to spend $200 million to build one once they had the money for it. All CSE has done is add another $690 million of cool stuff, which they will make millions off of and for which they will pay 29 cents on the dollar.

Given how jealously we guard our tax dollars in Alberta, I’m amazed at how brazenly this proposal demands we subsidize a wonderfully profitable corporation. Do they think Calgary will be so easily seduced by shiny new things?

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Perhaps we will. Edmonton’s leaders were opposed — until they weren’t. The real tactic here could be about negotiation: It remains to be seen whether our representatives on council will hold steadfast in their convictions; or, given such an extreme initial starting point, claim victory for the taxpayer when they meet the billionaires halfway.

National Post

Taylor Lambert is a Calgary journalist and the author of Rising: Stories of the 2013 Alberta Flood. His forthcoming book is Darwin’s Moving, about the Calgary moving industry.