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If the Atlantic Schooners ever kick off in the CFL, their games will be played in a multi-use stadium in Shannon Park.

Maybe.

The principals of Schooners Sports and Entertainment told a crowd of about 200 boosters and invited guests at a Dartmouth hotel on Saturday that they signed a letter of intent this week with Canada Lands.

If an agreement is reached, SSE would build a stadium on eight of the 32 hectares that form Shannon Park, the former military residential community. Canada Lands is the federal government’s real estate arm.

Anthony LeBlanc of SSE also announced plans for a smaller, less expensive stadium and a partnership with Sport Nova Scotia that would open the facility to more than professional athletes.

“The stadium will be used whenever the CFL team isn’t using it, so about 300 days a year,” said Jamie Ferguson of Sport Nova Scotia, estimating that provincial rugby, football and soccer governing bodies, as well as high school teams, could make use of the stadium for 25 weeks of the year.

Original estimates for the cost of the stadium ranged from $170-million to $190-million, but LeBlanc says they’re now looking at a building that would cost about $130-million.

“And that would be an all-in number,” said LeBlanc.

“What we’re presenting now is that this is a community stadium that has 12,000 seats. We realized it was something that was not getting a lot of traction for the public sector to be involved in something that was (only) supporting a professional team. We’d always hear the same comment: ‘But we agree that a community stadium makes sense.’”

SSE showed an artist’s rendering of the stadium, but refused to provide a digital copy for publication. LeBlanc said the team will pay for enhancements above and beyond the needs of a a community stadium.

“The fixed capacity (of permanent seats) will be in the neighbourhood of 12,000 in the main grandstand, you’ll have 10,000 on a sideline that’ll be a permanent structure but not quite as robust,” he said. “And then we will have true temporary seating in one of the end zones.”

A temporary dome that would make the stadium usable in the winter is also in the plans.

LeBlanc acknowledged the group is looking for public funding, and says they’ve begun talks with Ottawa. They have been told by the city and province that local government is supportive, but doesn’t want to take on “too much” risk. A proposal will go to HRM council this spring.

First on the list of things to do is to come up with a price for the land.

“We have a framework of an agreement,” LeBlanc said. “We need to consult with the public again....to make sure the public is OK with the stadium. They need us to work with and collaborate with Millbrook First Nation, because they have a very strong requirement that Millbrook is informed and agrees with the concept. We’ve agreed on a range for the price for the purchase of the land, but we have to finalize what that is.

“We will be the group that operates the facility, and what that means is that we will be the group that takes on the financial risk of operating, which is a multi-million dollar annual fee. But the usage will be more from the community side of things.”

LeBlanc said once a deal is reached to build a stadium, the team could play a season or two in Moncton during construction. He also said 6,000 people have paid a deposit on season tickets for Schooners games.

CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie told the crowd he envisions an annual Labour Day game between the Atlantic Schooners and B.C. Lions called the Coast Bowl.

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been to making the dream a reality,” the commissioner said of CFL football in Halifax.

He also said he met with the football federations of about 10 European countries this winter, and sees no reason to cede international expansion to the NFL.