There are comeback stories in sports and in the business of sports.
One is unfolding in Burnaby’s Central Valley, where construction of the MultiSport Centre of Excellence has roared back to life after almost three years of dormancy.
Amid the credit crunch in 2008, the developers – led by Goldcorp executive and donor of $23 million Scott Cousens – temporarily shut down building of the 148,000-square-foot venue.
Workers were back in August and the first big, new concrete pour happened in mid-September. Completion of the podium is scheduled for next August with the athletes’ accommodation by the end of 2012.
“The structure has not changed; the design is the same,” said chief executive Loyal Makaroff. “What we found is that by putting [it] on hold, the construction costs have come down.”
Back in 2008, a $65 million budget was contemplated in a market where Olympic-related building drove up costs. Now materials and labour are cheaper, bringing the budget down to a more manageable $54 million.
The centre will offer teams and individuals a hat trick of sport medicine, sport science and sport training facilities and services.
“It’s looking more at the overall athlete coming in,” Makaroff said. “It could be a U-12 soccer player, it could be an under-80 masters’ level rower; it’s looking at people who are athletic and are active.”
Colliers will go back to the market to seek tenants for 10,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 square feet of commercial/retail and the 7,000-square-foot kitchen and restaurant.
“What we would like to do is help fill in gaps that are missing in sports,” Makaroff said. “One of the goals we have is to work with provincial organizations and national organizations to the best of our ability.”
The centre is marketing itself as a place for athletes preparing for the Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016 Olympics. With such connected and respected advisers like Dr. Doug Clement and Dr. Jack Taunton, it’s an attainable goal.
Hoop dreams
John Hines is rolling the dice that the November 19 B.C. Basketball Classic between Gonzaga University Bulldogs and the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors at Rogers Arena will be bigger than it would have been in Las Vegas.
The NCAA men’s basketball squads from Spokane and Honolulu needed one more game to complete their schedules.
“This was literally the only date Gonzaga could play on,” said Hines, director of Seattle-based Idol Sports and Entertainment. “I had suggested Vancouver might be a more reasonable spot, because of the players from Canada.”
Those players include seven-footers Robert Sacre of North Vancouver and Kelly Olynyk of Kamloops. Senior centre Sacre is touted as a possible first-round pick in the 2012 National Basketball Association draft.
The NBA lockout has cancelled training camps and all pre-season games October 9 to 15. Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns had penciled in an October 17 exhibition against the Portland Trail Blazers at Rogers Arena, but it doesn’t appear on the schedule for the former Grizzlies’ den.
That’s good news for Hines, who concedes that his 10-week sales window for tickets and sponsorships is tight.
“There are challenges because we’re so late, media buys and sponsorship more difficult to find,” he said.
Tickets, on sale October 14, are priced $14 to $250, and Hines said break-even is between 9,000 and 10,000 in the 17,391 basketball configuration. Sponsorship packages begin at $5,000 for recognition in the program, on the public address system and on the basket stations’ covers, plus eight centre court section seats. The title sponsorship is $35,000 and includes video ring and video board advertising, an on-court promotional contest and 40 lower-level tickets, including four at courtside.
The last NCAA regular season game in Vancouver was December 1, 1990, when only 7,963 showed up to see defending NCAA Final Four champion University of Nevada Las Vegas beat the University of Alabama-Birmingham 109-68 in B.C. Place Stadium. Controversial, towel-chewing coach Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels included Greg Anthony, who would become Vancouver’s first pick in the 1995 NBA expansion draft. •
