A recent comment by Mayor Fred Eisenberger that it could take years for the city to decide what to do with FirstOntario Centre has prompted the owner of the Hamilton Bulldogs to say that's far too protracted a time frame and the pace has to be accelerated.

Eisenberger was on 900CHML with Bill Kelly the other day when he was asked for an update on what's going on with the aging, 33-year-old arena. This question was in response to Michael Andlauer's offer of a few months ago to put millions of his own dollars toward a new, smaller facility somewhere in town.

The mayor said a process is now underway to figure out what to do with the arena as well as the city's other entertainment facilities.

"That's going to take a few years," Eisenberger said. "Getting into an arena issue with the costs that are associated with that is going to be a complex issue and it's going to take some time for us to sort out what's the best path to go forward here."

On Thursday, he said his answer was a best guess based on past examples and it might just take a couple years. Perhaps less. But considering some issues — he cited Pier 7 and 8 — have taken 20 years to resolve, it won't happen instantly.

"That's not something that happens in a couple of months," Eisenberger said.

Andlauer says he wasn't surprised at this because the city doesn't make quick changes. As a result, he knows it can't happen overnight. And he says he wants to be fair and give the city enough room to deal with the issue properly. But a few years, he says, will probably become more than a few years.

"By that time, they'll have spent millions of dollars just to keep the roof on," Andlauer says. "They're going to waste taxpayers' money in fixing the facility rather than going out there and getting something new."

It was back in November that Andlauer said he'd like to see a 5,000-to-10,000-seat arena built somewhere in town that would likely cost $60 million to $100 million. Partially because FirstOntario is too large for non-NHL hockey and many of the other events held in town, and partially because it is getting old and will require expensive repairs and maintenance in the years ahead.

Repairs on escalators and elevators costing $4.3 million were approved in December. Meanwhile, construction has been going on outside the team's office at the corner of York and Bay for weeks.

To show he was committed to such a project, Andlauer vowed to match dollar-for-dollar whatever the city contributed toward a new rink. That proposal prompted Coun. Sam Merulla to bring a motion exploring whether the city could give the publicly owned entertainment properties to private investors for development in exchange for that developer providing new entertainment facilities.

Andlauer says he understands this is a difficult subject for council, especially in an election year, because money will have to be spent and that's always controversial.

"But ultimately, you're going to have to spend money either way."

As for Eisenberger's answer that this could take a few years, he says that doesn't work for him. A few years to decide what to do followed by more time deciding who to partner with, followed by time preparing and planning the new project — if that was the decision — followed by a couple years of building could leave a resolution five or 10 years down the road.

"We can't wait five years," Andlauer said. "People are going to lose interest."

Ideally, he would like to be in a new facility within three years. Which means a crawling pace toward a decision isn't acceptable to him.

Andlauer's sense of urgency to see something happen only grew more intense recently when he attended junior hockey's top-prospects game and a number of people pointed out the Regina Pats are a bottom-half team in the Western Hockey League while his team is one of the best in the country. Yet Regina, not Hamilton, is hosting the Memorial Cup this spring in part because the committee choosing the site determined FirstOntario Centre wasn't up to it.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

"I understand," he said to each of those folks.

He might. But he clearly doesn't like it.