Trio named as Calgary event centre third party for negotiations, timeline still undetermined
via Global News by Adam MacVicar
A trio of Calgary businessmen have been selected as the third party to help determine whether Calgary Flames ownership is interested in re-entering negotiations to resurrect an agreement to build a new event centre with the City of Calgary.
City officials announced on Wednesday that the third party is made up of three men with commercial real estate experience: CBRE executive vice president John Fisher, NAIOP Calgary director of strategic initiatives Guy Huntingford, and Phil Swift, executive chairman at Ayrshire Group.
According to Stuart Dalgleish, the City of Calgary’s general manager of planning and development, the group brings “considerable expertise” in commercial real estate as well as large developments.
“The third party is having discussions with both the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) and the City of Calgary with a view to determining whether there is interest in discussions towards a new event centre,” Dalgleish told reporters following Wednesday’s event centre committee meeting.
The update from administration came after the committee went into closed session for nearly two hours.
The third party has also been tasked with finding other parties interested in partnering on the event centre project. But administration said the group has only engaged with the city and Flames ownership so far.
City officials also said that there is no formal timeline or commitment in place to “establish interest in re-entering discussions to construct an event centre and what conditions might be required to do so.”
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Construction was set to begin back in January on the more than $600 million event centre, but the agreement between the City of Calgary and CSEC to replace t