Mike Savage is waiting to get more information and advice from municipal staff

With files from Canadian Press

Mayor Mike Savage would like to see Halifax get a stadium, but only if it makes financial sense for the city.

Municipal staff are currently analyzing hundreds of pages of documents from Schooner Sports and Entertainment (SSE) for a proposed facility that could allow the CFL to expand to Halifax Regional Municipality.

According to the proposal, the first phase would cost about $94 million, with an additional $10 million for the cost of the land. The stadium would be located in Shannon Park and have 12,000 permanent seats but could be expanded to 24,000 for CFL games on a 38-hectare area.

The venue would be used for football, soccer, rugby, lacrosse and other sports, in partnership with Sport Nova Scotia when not being used by the CFL. An inflatable dome would be put up in the winter.

SSE outlined five funding options for HRM:

HRM committing $2 million annually to the lender with SSE paying $1 million and a ticket surcharge capped at $10 per ticket on all tickets sold for events.

A payment of $15 to $20 million, 15 to 20 per cent of the project cost, from HRM.

Payments for 25 per cent of the project, totalling about $25 million, over a period of time from HRM.

HRM being the loan guarantor and the municipality having to "pay such shortfalls on an annual basis based on the guaranteed percentage."

Annual HRM cash payments not covered by the province or SSE.

However, Savage told NEWS 95.7's The Rick Howe Show, HRM doesn't do loan guarantees, so that option is off the table.

He said the upfront payment option of $15 to $20 million is conceivable, but necessary municipal services would need to be added in before we have an idea of the total financial commitment.

"There are a lot of other costs that we have to factor in as a city in terms of getting people to and from. It has to fit our Integrated Mobility Plan, it has to fit the Regional Plan," Savage said. "There's a train that goes through Shannon Park and we have to talk to our partners at CN to make sure we don't get into a situation where people can't get in and out."

"They've identified it as a transit-oriented development. I think that's the only thing that we would consider, something that's largely transit-based to get people to and from."

SSE's proposal suggests HRM use funds generated from tax incremental financing for its contribution to the stadium.

"The basis of it is, the proponents build a stadium, and then you sort of red circle development around it, and identify that the property tax from that incremental growth would go to pay the municipal part of the stadium," Savage explained.

However, he said that model could present some complications.

"We're going to have growth in Shannon Park in any event and we need to identify realistically what growth is directly the result of a stadium .... we need to make sure if things don't grow as quickly as you say they will, that we don't end up picking up the tab for growth that didn't happen, but you told us would."

Beyond the funding, Savage said there are a lot of aspects staff need to investigate.

"We'd want to know what the construction schedule is, we'd want to know what the economic impact would be, we'd want to know what the revenue projections are, but those are all things we need to validate among our own staff, and we need to know if the timelines are realistic."

Savage is waiting to get advice from municipal staff before he can throw his support behind the stadium, adding the public will be consulted before any decision is made.

SSE co-founder Anthony LeBlanc told the Canadian Press he feels the best of the five options is the first.

"The nice thing that it does is it addresses the concern of people who say, ‘Hey, I don’t want this because I’m never going to use it,"’ LeBlanc said. "The people who will be paying for it will be the people who are going to the events in the stadium.

"We really like it and think it’s an elegant solution. From our perspective this pretty much de-risks the investment from HRM as much as possible and we expect it would certainly be to the point where that $2 million is more than covered between our payment and the surcharge."