Winnipeg council approves stadium deal

Winnipeg city councillors have voted to spend $12.5 million and forfeit years of property-tax revenue from a prime piece of retail land to build a $190-million football stadiumon the University of Manitoba campus.

The municipal nod of approval is effectively the final hurdle that the long-awaited deal needed to clear to proceed.

Construction on the 33,000-seat facility for the Winnipeg Blue Bomberscan now continue in earnest, with an expected completion at some point in 2012. Some excavation of the site has already been done.

The nearly unanimous14-2 council vote came less than 24 hours after a report outlining the city's role in the multimillion-dollar deal was publicly released.

The Government of Manitoba is putting up the bulk of the capital for the stadium, $85 million of which will be in the form of a loan to the Winnipeg Football Club, which is the managing entity of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The club will have 44 years to repay the money.

When the current stadium site at Polo Park is ultimately redeveloped, money that is collected by the city in property taxes about $75 million will be repaid to the province.

The football club unanimously approved the deal during a meeting late Monday afternoon, and officials at the U of M followed suit Tuesday.

Those who approved the deal didn't resoundingly endorse the stadium plan or how it was presented to council, however.

Orlikow said he was concerned about a lack of publicinputon the deal.

'The football team, for its part, is probably the biggest show in town.' Coun. Gord Steeves

"I have to hold my nose, and with a whole lot of trust will vote in favour with some reservations," he told his fellow councillors.

Gerbasi agreed, saying her acceptance of the deal was "somewhat of a matter of faith."

"It's important for council to come together to get something done. I will support this," she said.

Not all of the politicians were ascautious, with Steeves calling the financial arrangement"the best financial deal ever struck by a municipality for a new stadium."

Steeves said the CFL team and the citizens of Winnipeg are "inextricably linked."

"We shouldn't underestimate how this community feels about this football team," he said. "The football team, for its part, is probably the biggest show in town."

The original deal included businessman David Asper, who has dropped out of the revised plan.