Arena and Event Centre

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 

This letter is in response to the editorial dated March 1, 2017 and entitled, “Arena decision looms for Sudbury Council.” 

The editorial states that “two prominent developers […] indicated they would privately fund and run a new arena…”  

The City has not received and is not aware of any offers to privately fund and run an arena/event centre. While we know there has been a great deal of enthusiasm shown by our community, it has been too early to receive this information as we have not identified what specifications are required for Greater Sudbury. This will be brought to Council on March 7, 2017.  The presentations made to Council at the Large Projects meeting of November 27, 2015 are available online.  

City Council has received several reports throughout 2016 about an event centre. A full report from the subject matter expert is on the agenda for next week's Council meeting, outlining recommendations on what a new building could look like. Staff is recommending an approach that leads to an RFP process which would allow all interested parties to bid, ensuring that the community gets the best value for its money and understands completely what responsibilities the city would be taking on prior to a final decision.

Sincerely, 

Ed Archer
Chief Administrative Officer