How Metallica rocking Montreal’s Olympic Stadium reignites debate about venue’s relevancy – Montreal | 24CA News
Metallica is enjoying two large reveals on the Olympic Stadium this weekend, as soon as once more reigniting questions concerning the venue’s relevance in Montreal, and if the excessive price of its repairs can be value it.
The venue, which is a fixture in Montreal’s skyline, can host as much as 56,000 folks. Friday and Sunday night will see tens of 1000’s of followers descend on the long-lasting stadium that has been riddled with roof points for years, and with that, the continued debate as as to whether taxpayers’ cash ought to go towards its restore.
“The capacity of the site is necessary for a city like Montreal,” Dinu Bumbaru from Heritage Montreal instructed Global News. “So it’s not like a decoration. It’s very functional for the city, as well as a landmark.”
But that landmark wants over $250 million in repairs. Back in 2017, then-premier Philippe Couillard’s Liberal authorities permitted the finances of that quantity for its renovations — a mission that was set to be completed by 2022.
But that contract has since been cancelled. Engineers discovered that not solely did the domed roof want main repairs, however the ring across the roof must be changed too, so the price of the work is anticipated to balloon.
The venue hasn’t had a most important tenant or sports activities workforce because the Expos nearly 20 years in the past. In the final a long time it has hosted all kinds of occasions, from sporting competitions to concert events to automotive reveals, however the buzz across the stadium has at all times been about its structural and monetary points.
As per the stadium’s annual report, taxpayers fund it to the tune of just about $20 million a 12 months — in 2022 it price $19,8 million. The venue introduced in $21,3 million in income that 12 months, making it marginally worthwhile.
The retractable roof has skilled quite a few rips and leaks because it was constructed within the 80s. In 1991 assist beams snapped and a 55-ton concrete slab fell onto an exterior a part of the venue, injuring nobody.
The roof has been underneath fixed security supervision since, and the worth tag of its restore has stalled it from getting completed — in addition to the query of venue’s relevance within the metropolis.
The metropolis’s NHL and CFL groups name different venues dwelling, so there isn’t a native sports activities workforce searching for actual property. Most massive concert events play on the Bell Centre, which music specialists have lengthy mentioned supplies higher sound than the Olympic Stadium does.
Economist Moshe Lander instructed Global News he believes the price of sustaining it isn’t value it, contemplating what it supplies.
“You can’t say that Metallica came to town, therefore it’s justified to keep it going for another 250 million dollars, right?” he mentioned. “Knock it down and put in social housing.”
But like Heritage Montreal, others suppose the long-lasting venue positioned within the metropolis’s east finish is value investing in.
American vacationer Jerry Ho instructed Global from exterior the stadium on Friday that he remembers getting a snow globe of the venue when he was younger, and that now he had come to see the structure of the place for himself. “I didn’t get to (ever) see it. And now I’m here, I’m going to be inside.”
As for Metallica followers, they instructed Global News they have been thrilled to see the band play the venue.
“I would say Metallica has probably won the Olympics of metal, so how fitting,” mentioned Jacob Dayfox from North Bay, Ontario.
The multi-purpose stadium was constructed underneath Mayor Jean Drapeau’s tenure within the mid-Seventies to host the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympic video games. It at present stands because the second largest venue within the nation after Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, which solely holds about 300 folks extra.
The group managing the Olympic Stadium is about to submit its new repairs mission for the Quebec authorities to overview and approve this fall.
The minister liable for the stadium, Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx, says she is ready for that step to be full earlier than she points any remark.
— with information from Gloria Henriquez, Global News
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
