Welcome to KCAL! We believe that the City of Kingston, and Greater Kingston Area, need a new, or renewed, entertainment venue. We are not opposed to a new building - we are concerned about the overall process, and the way this project was rammed-through, and the evidently raw-deal for Kingston taxpayers, especially the shouldering of ALL financial risks.
Read the most recent scuttlebutt, or fetch it automatically with
Browse the LVEC saga timeline
On the minuscule North East corner of the North Block, the City proposes to build a facility that's expandable, so they say, to 6,000 seats which is about double the capacity of the current Memorial Centre.
- Estimates of both costs and economic benefits made by promoters of sports and entertainment stadiums should never be taken at face value.
- The whole process has been driven by the downtown-business community to benefit that community. Downtown-business interests have stacked the organizing committees and controlled the agendas at critical meetings. The committes' only focus has to build the LVEC for the benefit of downtown businesses. Other site-selection factors, including respect for waterfront, don't enter.
- We believe that the City of Kingston is in a conflict-of-interest, as it is acting as both developer and evaluator of the LVEC project. As a result, a system of checks-and-balances is not in effect.
- The whole LVEC-analysis process has been unjustly accelerated, and we believe it to be filled with bogus, self-imposed deadlines.
- The LVEC proposal is structured as an expensive, hurried, "take-it" or "leave-it" proposal. We believe this has been done to create the sense of having invested too many resources thus making it impossible to turn back, or alter course. No "Plan B", no fine-tuning of the plan, has ever been submitted for consideration.
- Studies and reports justifying the project, particularly those involving a more-thorough examination of the qualities of its primary chosen location, have been seriously fudged. The proof is here.
- We expect that the beneficiaries of this city-wide taxpayer-funded largesse will likely be a relatively-small percentage of the citizens and businesses in the Greater-Kingston area.
Plain and simple: On the basis of the research we have done and present here, we are convinced that many aspects of the planning of the proposed Large Venue Entertainment Centre (LVEC) are not in the best interests of Kingston as a whole.
Where we are, and how the LVEC project got to this point, is documented here. We provide links to resources on both sides in the issue. Judge for yourself, and PLEASE make a point of telling your City Councillor how you feel about their position on this important matter.
Here is how the Memorial Centre and the North Block properties compare:
Bruce Todd's broad analysis of the Anglin Bay T&P Study: 24 weaknesses or outright fudgings. (April 25)
Bruce Todd's detailed letters to city councilors/planners:
#14- Clearance Time After an Event
(June 1 2005) - Lengthy.
#13- Parking Availability and Key Factors
(May 31 2005) - inadequate.
#12- Acceptable Walking Distance
(May 30 2005) - Fudged.
#11- Traffic Counts
(May 29 2005) - Fudged.
#10- Study Area and Study Data
(May 28 2005) - Fudged.
#9 - Infrastructure and Management
(May 27 2005) - Excessive.
#8 - Determination of Mode of Travel
(May 26 2005)- Fudged.
#7 - Available On-Street Parking
(May 25 2005) - Fudged.
#6 - The Anglin Parking Lot
(May 24 2005) - Not workable.
#5 - Display Maps
(May 23 2005) - Fudged.
#4 - Drop Off and Pick Up Mode of Access
(May 22 2005) - Impractical.
#3 - The Two Adjacent Parking Lots
(May 21 2005) - Clearly insufficient.
#2 - No
Pedestrian Counts (May 20 2005) - Fudged.
#1 - Concerns About the Content of Phase I
(May 19 2005) - Major holes.
- Adjustments for the consultant's errors (April 30 2005)
- Parking: There isn't enough , existing or planned.
- See also: Myths about the LVEC.
The business plan is over a year out of date, and its appendices still show diagrams of an arena on waterfront idea that died in September 2005, eight months ago.
- Link to the Business Plan documents
- Stewart Fyfe on the LVEC business plan (May 10 2005)
- Paul Fraresso, P.Eng: Report on the business plan (April 27
2005)
- Derek Baldwin's Critique of the Business Plan (April 16 2005)
- Bruce Todd's Critique of the Business Plan
- Stewart Fyfe on the KEDCO report (May 10 2005)
- "Stimulating" the downtown core? Questionable.
- Experience of other cities with LVECs. Not pretty.
- Mary Louise Adams' references. Kingston is no different.
- Any guarantee the Frontenacs will stay? That's not given.
- See also Myths about the LVEC.
Now the process is all about rushing the design, contract, and to start of construction before the municipal election date in November 2006.
- KCAL (not the city) puts LVEC concept plan
image online (6 MB)
- KCAL (not the city) puts Traffic and Parking Study online
(12 MB)
- Citizen Participationis notably absent from this process.
- Patti Arnold's points about LVEC anomalies
(May 6)
- Bruce Todd's letter about the process so far. (May 5)
- The process: responsibility & accountability: The chronology so far.
- Notes from April 24, 2005 presentations : Mary Louise Adams, Irena Manoliu, Joche Katan, Betty Harlow, Robert Mackenzie
See also Myths about the LVEC.
Additional documents:
- January 2004 rena Capacity Report
- 2004 Communities Arena Report
- Cromarty Report
- Relevant extracts from Waterfront and Official Plans, Zoning By-laws
Updated Feb 18 2008
