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The man quarterbacking the Canadian Football League drive for Halifax says some skeptics are offside.

Anthony LeBlanc took particular exception to a Concordia University professor’s criticism of Shannon Park as the selected location for a 24,000-seat stadium.

“He doesn’t like the site, he thinks the site should be downtown,” said an incredulous LeBlanc, one of three businessmen fronting Maritime Football Ltd, the company that wants to bring a team and a multi-purpose stadium to Halifax.

“That’s fantastic, but what does he think — should we knock down City Hall or perhaps the Citadel? There is no space. I was flabbergasted at his comments. Shannon Park was identified by everybody that we talked to as the preferred site and we spent a year on this. That one kind of blew my mind. I am all ears if he has a site downtown that can accommodate 20 acres and a stadium and a mixed-use development.”

Maritime Football Ltd. has proposed a stadium that will cost in the range of $170 million to $190 million for the Shannon Park location, in north-end Dartmouth on the shore of Halifax harbour.

Moshe Lander, a Concordia professor who specializes in the economics of sports and spends parts of his summers working at Dalhousie University, told The Chronicle Herald that Shannon Park is not a convenient access point from downtown Halifax.

“The idea of modern stadium design is that you kind of want to put it where people already are so that they have an incentive to use the stadium as kind of a broader experience,” Lander said. “You go to the bar, you have a couple of drinks, then you go to the game.”

Regional council unanimously approved a motion Tuesday to have municipal chief administrative officer Jacques Dube and a team of city staffers complete a thorough business case analysis on a stadium. The analysis will take at least six months to complete and will include evaluations on the need for a stadium, the cost benefit, the economic benefits, partnership opportunities and cost estimates. At the completion of the analysis, Dube and company will make a recommendation to council on whether it should proceed with the project or abandon it.

LeBlanc attended the council meeting and was concerned by some of the councillors questions.

“I think it was a good result, a good discussion and it now allows us to know where people’s heads are so we can start to address the concerns that came out,” said LeBlanc, former co-owner and president of the Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League.

LeBlanc was troubled by the six-month lag before Dube takes the business analysis back to council.

“I don’t understand why it would need to be even close to that length of time. We’ve committed to Mr. Dube and his staff that we will get back to him at the end of this month with all of our numbers. We’re very advanced, we just had to wait until we finalized the site. The fact that it is Shannon Park, it makes it a little bit more work because of the fact that we don’t own our own destiny.”

The entire 38-hectare Shannon Park area was used for military housing by the federal Defence Department for about 50 years before it was delcared surplus in 2003. LeBlanc said he will meet with Canada Lands, the Crown corporation tasked with selling or redeveloping surplus federal property, to negotiate a sale of the portion that Maritime Football requires for the stadium. Millbrook First Nation will eventually own and control about 12 hectares of waterfront property in Shannon Park, adjacent to the potential stadium site. The Millbrook band plans to develop its property for mixed residential and commercial use, including an expected entertainment and gambling complex.

LeBlanc expects to meet with the Millbrook band in the near future.

Meanwhile, CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie will join LeBlanc and other team stakeholders in Halifax next Wednesday for a news conference. LeBlanc said a number of things will be announced, including stadium partnerships, but the key thing will be the launch of the season ticket drive.

“It’s no different than when the Las Vegas Golden Knights came into the NHL. Before they werre granted a full franchise, they had to do a season ticket drive and achieve a certain amount.”

LeBlanc said exact numbers are yet to be determined but it is expected that fans can commit to a season ticket for less than a $100 deposit, which will be refunded if the team never hits the field.

“We need people to show us that, yes, they are going to be there and to show up for these games. It’s critically important. What we’ve been working on with the CFL is to get us to the point of a conditional franchise, the condition being we get a stadium. I don’t think that there is a need to wait until HRM finishes their work over the next few months for that process to happen. At the same time, nobody wanted to go out and award a franchise if there was no meat on the bone.”

LeBlanc said the goal is to get a commitment for at least half the seats to be sold as season tickets. A Corporate Research Associates survey indicated that 63 per cent of Halifax residents support a public-private partnership to build a stadium, so LeBlanc said the season ticket goal is reasonable.

He said a single ticket will range from $25 to $30 in the upper deck to several hundred dollars for club seating, which will include food.

LeBlanc said the ownership group will announce next week a team naming process that will include public engagement. Soon after, the team will identify up to a dozen founding sponsors and hire a director of football operations, who will have a say in the design of the team space at the stadium.

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