Why not invest a fifth billion dollars to keep it in survival mode as long as we are connected to the Olympic Stadium?
After that there will be a sixth. No problem. We'll find a solution in the seventh or eighth.
The stadium cost $3.5 billion between 1976 and 2018, my colleague Michel Girard reported. Add five years of maintenance costs and the $750 billion to $1 billion that would urgently need to be invested to save the stadium, and there you have it. We're at almost $5 billion, a significant portion of which is paid by taxpayers.
And all this for what?
Host CF Montreal's training camp and a few games?
If, for whatever reason, something big wanted to happen in Montreal in eight years, do you think they would settle in the Olympic Stadium?
It is impossible. No renovation will bring the stadium to a level suitable for a new team.
The meaning of the symbol
What's left? Big truck competitions, motorcycle competitions, craft fairs, a few rock shows, a dinosaur exhibit? I write this with all due respect to Bigfoot, living rooms and dinosaurs.
I understand that the stadium is an important symbol in Montreal. The symbol that we can achieve great things in Quebec. It's nostalgia for major projects in Montreal.
But as an architectural gem you can argue about it, but in my opinion it is not the Château Frontenac either.
As far as symbolism goes, Yankee Stadium was one too. But he still got shaved to keep going.
Other stadiums
The summer games before Montreal took place in Munich. The stadium there is still there. But Bayer Munich hasn't played there since 2006. Another magnificent stadium was built and the tide was turned.
The one in Moscow (1980) was demolished. The one from Barcelona (1992) is no longer of much use. Atlanta's (1996) was converted to Major Baseball for the Braves and the team left in 2016.
I know, I come from Quebec and I hear certain criticisms very well.
“They built an amphitheater and don’t even have an NHL team.”
Yes, $370 million is a lot of money for the Videotron Center. But Seattle paid $1.15 billion in 2021 to renovate Climate Pledge Arena to host the Kraken.
Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle archive photo, Getty Images via AFP
Events take place around 100 days a year in the Videotron Center, half of which are cultural events.
That's around 800,000 tickets sold per year. It's better than Rogers Arena in Vancouver and the Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa, according to the company Pollstar, which tracks amphitheater attendance.
In fact, it is the fourth largest amphitheater in Canada in terms of ticket sales.
No, it's not like the Bell Center. But Quebec cannot be compared to Montreal.
Quebec is a medium-sized city. That doesn't mean she shouldn't have a decent amphitheater to see Pearl Jam or Morgan Wallen.
Nostalgia is expensive
So if we allocate $1 billion to keep Olympic Stadium hosting sporadic events, can we see that the $370 million for the Videotron Center wasn't in vain? We can denounce the political decision to invest in entertainment infrastructure, but we cannot ignore that it meets a need, the Videotron Center.
In short: Yes, we can invest a fifth billion dollars in the Olympic Stadium. We can also pay dearly for demolition while trying to preserve a legacy or even a calling for the site, but no longer live in nostalgia and wait for a project when an investor wants to start over. Think big and flip instead of trying to recycle compost.