What about Lamport stadium? You could tear it down and rebuild it to meet CFL size and increase the seating (the size of the lot could easily fit this). You might lose the parking lot on the south side of the stadium in order to fit the end zones and end zone seating, but there's quite a few public parking lots in that area. Plus you would still have access to the Go train station and better access to the Dufferin St bus and King St streetcar lines.
There's not enough space to build a 29,000 seat stadium there. And there's no where near enough parking and limited highway access and no subway access. Plus Lamport is owned by the city.
Braley has already said that he's looking at North Toronto, Vaughan, Markham and maybe Mississauga.
The Lamport site has been discussed extensively on the Skyscraper forum. See here for a mock-up someone did of a 31k seater: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...52997&page=154.
Basically, you can get a CFL stadium in there but it would use up every square inch of the grounds and parking lot. That would be entirely impractical. I took some pictures down there and noticed you'd also need to purchase at least one private home to make it work on the western side. Plus it's a comparative stone's throw to BMO and the city would be very unlikely to put money toward another stadium so close.
A fair idea but not quite doable.
Interesting (I'm assuming the designer didn't have the time to put a roof on their model). I thought maybe Lamport might have been viable since you wouldn't have to start from scratch as you would, well, pretty much anywhere else. Transit may not be ideal (yeah no subway but there aren't too many viable sites near the subway line), but it's not bad. Highway access is also not ideal, but if Argos fans have been able to live with trying to access the QEW from around Robbers Center all these decades I'm sure having to access it from the Ex is not a big deal. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about having to contend with traffic coming out of the ACC on the rare occasions when the two venues let out at the same time. I really don't want to see the Argos leave the City of Toronto proper. It's just not the same having them in Mississauga or Vaughan.
I would think that Lamport would actually take longer because you would have to tear down the old stadium first.
Driving to BMO Field or Lamport Stadium is actually worse than the Rogers Centre because the highway exits aren't as good and there is less parking. Plus when the CNE is on you lose parking and you lose access to/from Dufferin street. Another problem is the lack of bars and restaurants in the area.
As far as I'm aware the only sites in 416 Toronto that are being considered are BMO Field, Downsview and Woodbine Racetrack.
As to Vaughan you would have highway and subway access. Also the Ottawa Senators don't play in Ottawa and the 49ers are moving out of San Francisco too.
No, I must join the others in saying it was not common knowledge. It was known that they would like to do such, but nothing was made official. It was all talk and essentially still is. I remember when the Jays were in spring training and this is when the topic really took off, but Beeston did not give an official answer. In fact, they want to do it 5 years from now, but until they start hammering the concrete, you just never know for sure. A lot can happen in 5 years.
Last edited by ArgoZ; 11-07-2013 at 08:59 PM.
We're officially going in circles. Let's agree that there was increasing talk of the change to grass for some months (including clear indications from Beeston in the spring) but that the hammer didn't officially fall until September. It's certainly an exaggeration to call it "common knowledge for years."
The first two articles talk about the "potential" and "discussing" of grass. The last one is bang on just what I said, in which it didn't start gaining real steam until this last Jays pre-season. Even then, the article quotes sources and not Beeston himself, because there has yet to be an official announcement of such. Your articles just proved what we have been saying. It was common knowledge that they wanted to install grass, it was not that they were going to do so.
Last edited by ArgoZ; 11-07-2013 at 09:19 PM.
Random note: the Wikipedia page on the Dome had no mention whatsoever of the change over to grass. I just updated it. NOW it's common knowledge!
I think going to a refurbished BMO is the best option, but only if MLSE buys the team. It's the safest bet.
But if it comes to best location for a new stadium, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Portlands. Minutes from downtown, thousands of acres of developable land, its the perfect place for a Lansdowne Stadium-type development with lots of commercial and residential in and around the stadium. Enough land -- downtown land -- that could attract a really great civic-pride kind of development.
The best part is how the changing transportation infrastructure could make the Portlands a perfect fit for the future. The Gardiner east of Jarvis is coming down. They are going to completely redesign the Don Valley/Gardiner/Lakeshore interchange. You could have a Don Valley offramp heading straight into the stadium area, and a Lakeshore Southeast turnoff coming off the Gardiner eastbound.
The new Downtown Relief Subway line is supposed to head south from Pape Station then west to the West Donlands, pretty easy (relatively) to connect to the Portlands from there. No real good GO solution, though.
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