Fort McMurray will know in a few days what the future holds for the proposed downtown arena.
The city will decide on Tuesday whether or not to side with a provincial inquiry officer, and vote against the expropriation of a few downtown businesses.
The redevelopment’s executive director Ron Taylor said that after talking to a member of his legal counsel, he’s optimistic about the project going through.
“It’s not unusual for the inquiry officer to side with some of the concerns of the affected parties,” he said.
“She’s never seen a council not proceed when that does occur”
Taylor also says his group has met with consultants to address the need for added parking and traffic control.
“There’ve been some questions about whether we’ve done our due diligence around the ability to access the arena. I want to assure the community that we have very carefully considered all of the technical issues,” he said.
Because of the ongoing expropriation issue, the potential start date for construction of the arena at Franklin and Morrison has been pushed back to January 2014.
“Expropriation is a very difficult process particularly for those owners and their tenants,” said Taylor.
“While we’ve done our best to communicate, we have to respect that it’s not easy, and there are some big changes.”
April 3, 2013
