Update: Council gives stadium a “Yellow Light”

Dear Neighbours,

In a unanimous decision, City Council voted in favor of advancing the plans for a Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium, so long as major critical issues are resolved.

These issues include improving the road access to the site, dealing with the hazardous materials that pass underneath the stadium, and ensuring the impact of noise and crowds in the neighbourhood are adequately addressed.

City Staff warn that these are huge issues. Just one of these issues, improving the roads in the already congested area, could cost up to $50 million.

The Whitecaps and City Staff will now begin a 24-month planning process to determine whether the plan can work. If Council and staff are satisfied with the progress at this time, the Whitecaps can make an official application to build the stadium. This is far from a done-deal. If Council is not satisfied that the Whitecaps have made sufficient progress with the issues, the plan could be blocked.

We would like to thank everyone for their hard work and continued support. A special thank you to those members who signed our petition and/or spoke at council. We will continue to follow this stadium as it progresses.

Sincerely,

Jon Stovell, Reliance Holdings
Niels Bendtsen, Inform Interiors
Scott Hawthorn, Blood Alley Holdings Inc.
Harvey Reehal, Modern Kid
Sukhdev Swami, Michelle’s Import Plus

An email came in from Bob Lenarduzzi last week. Looks like the Waterfront Stadium received endorsement from the City of Vancouver and is moving forward.

Dear Raj,

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the Vancouver Whitecaps vision of a mid-size multi-purpose facility located on the waterfront north of Gastown received a unanimous endorsement from the City of Vancouver on Tuesday, July 11 at City Hall.

On behalf of Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot and our entire organization, THANK YOU for your support of Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium. In addition to signing up on our stadium website, many of you also came out to cheer on our speakers at a Whitecaps Stadium Special Council meeting. We truly appreciate this support. Thanks to your efforts the Mayor and Council also received hundreds of support letters which helped to move the project forward and set parameters to make it a priority.

Throughout the process we had a number of people come forward and voice their support for the stadium. Thank you to everyone who helped us reach this milestone. A special mention to Bill Currie, founder of Friends of Soccer and John Kostiuk, founder of Stadium NOW!, for their tremendous efforts.

Starting in September the stadium development will be part of the Central Waterfront Hub and Rail Lands study. The hub portion of the study is expected to be complete within 12 months and will provide the platform and needed information to resolve the more technical key requirements such as road infrastructure and impact on future port lands development. Once the key requirements are met (September 2007) the stadium project will be separated from the hub study and we will enter the rezoning application process. If approved, the rezoning and development permit project is expected to take 12 months which would see the project break ground in late 2008.

City council has requested staff report back to them in September with steps to make the project a priority. As part of this process, City Council will receive quarterly updates on the project so they can monitor its progress relative to the timeline.

There’s still much work to be done but, more than ever, we remain committed to bringing our stadium to a successful completion. Thank you again for your wonderful support!

Sincerely,

Bob Lenarduzzi