In boardrooms across the city, U of T administrators and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) shareholders are attempting to hammer out a deal that could see a new, 25,000 seat stadium built on the now empty Varsity site. Larry Tanenbaum, chairperson of MLSE, the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors, approached the university late last year with a proposal to build a new sports facility on the U of T property. The development would include a stadium outfitted with an all-weather track, a refurbished Varsity arena, a second ice surface, and commercial space along the Bloor Street façade. With an estimated price tag of $100 million, the proposed athletics facility will be financed exclusively by Mr. Tanenbaum’s side. In exchange, the university will lease MLSE the land for an equally impressive price of zero dollars. Eventually, the stadium would be donated back to the university. That timeline is currently set at 35 years.
With these parameters established, and a partnership inching closer with each passing day, U of T coaches are finding it hard to contain their excitement over the deal. “I can’t describe my emotions about how great it would be,” says head track and field coach Carl Georgevski about the proposed development. “U of T is the only major university that doesn’t have any kind of outdoor training facility for track and field. You take a look at how well our team does, and that is without any kind of facility at all.”
Likewise, men’s hockey coach Darren Lowe looks forward to a better-equipped future. “I think that we do need an upgraded facility…for both men’s and women’s [hockey] teams. That includes dressing rooms, work-out facilities, therapy-everything needs to be a little bit more up to date.” In both cases, it is the deep pockets of the MLSE that will fund U of T’s long awaited facility and equipment overhaul.
Crossing their fingers in the present, these Varsity Blues coaches are also keeping an eye on the future. “Recruiting is very difficult at this school,” says Lowe, “not because this isn’t a top notch institution, but more because of the rigorous entry requirements. A new facility would be something to help convince those who have good marks and want to play hockey to come to U of T.”
For Georgevski, a new outdoor, all-weather, eight-lane track and training area would spare him many embarrassing conversations. “When high school students ask me ‘where do you train?’ I say ‘at St. Michael’s High School, at Riverdale park, at Winston Churchill park, and a little at Varsity field…but we don’t really have a real outdoor training facility on campus.'” Being able to boast a brand new, state-of-the-art track could help Georgevski and others recruit would-be star athletes to U of T’s programs.
Despite the decided advantages this deal could bring for select varsity teams, the real winners, say those involved, will be U of T and the city of Toronto. An athletics complex of this kind is a “wildly important enhancement to the university,” says Dellandrea, adding “[Larry Tanenbaum] is really interested in quality of life in this city, and he believes, as we believe, that this would enhance the quality of life in Toronto.”
“The university stands to benefit most out of this facility,” says Georgevski, who imagines a time not far from now when U of T will be able to host national and international level track and field competitions. “Just imagine having the national high school championships here,” he fantasizes, “to have those 3,000 students walk around our campus and see what a great place it is-it would change their minds about what a big, ugly place Toronto is…we couldn’t buy that kind of advertising.”
In addition to housing many Varsity Blues intercollegiate teams, the new facility could potentially play host to the Toronto Argonauts CFL franchise. Recovering from bankruptcy, the new Argos owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski are scouring the city for an alternative to the wildly expensive SkyDome-the team’s playing field since 1989. The U of T site and a proposed stadium at York University are two alternatives currently under consideration. Other major league tenants of the proposed Varsity development would be MLSE’s own Toronto Maple Leafs. The NHL club would most likely use the second ice surface, an arena with no spectator space, to practice.
Despite U of T’s firm stance to prioritize students at the sports facility, there have been concerns raised over the schedule-juggling sharing with the pros will entail. For the hockey teams, the construction of the second rink will ease the burden on ice time, allowing the Blues and the Leafs to happily share two surfaces. Lowe also points out that the Maple Leafs, like most professional hockey clubs, practice at either 10 a.m. or noon, not at intercollegiate times, which is generally in the late afternoon and evening. “I think we can co-exist,” says Georgevski, speaking about the Argos with whom his track and field squad would share the stadium. “For our kids to have the Toronto Maple Leafs and Argos in and around [the facility]-it could be a terrific motivator for them to see what the professional life is all about.”
Of course, the new sports complex would not come without its cost to students. “There would be much more service to students,” says Dellandrea, “and I’m speculating here, but I would assume that there would be some sort of increase to student athletic fees.” The deal continues to hinge on details such as these, and still needs to be ratified by U of T’s Governing Council. A governance vote is scheduled for no sooner than February.
Perhaps the most unsettling and unpredictable “x-factor” in the talks is the position of the Argos. “The unknown is how much time are the Argo owners going to give MLSE to make a deal,” says Dellandrea. “The gun they’re under-in order to run a viable franchise-is to get the Argos out of the SkyDome. Their publicly stated goal is to have the Argos in a new stadium by the 2006 season. Would they give Tanenbaum six months to construct a deal? I doubt it. You need the shovel in the ground by 2004.”
Until these kinks are ironed out, coaches and athletes will have to sit back and wait for a final decision to come down from the number-crunching boardrooms on high. It’s been almost two weeks since the MLSE shareholders gave Tanenbaum the greenlight to continue negotiations, but things still remain tenuous. “This deal,” says Dellandrea, “is a very thin deal…If you took your heart out of it, and only looked at it with your head and numbers, I don’t think you’d do it.” Tanenbaum is only the second-largest personal shareholder of MLSE – it is the Teachers pension fund and the Toronto Dominion Bank that own the majority of the company, and as Dellandrea puts it, “pension funds and banks are not much in the business of putting civic pride first and foremost…they’re [in the business] of numbers.”
Perhaps Lowe sums up the twists and turns of the proposed deal best. “I’ve been here for nine years,” says the hockey coach, “and I think ever since I got here they’ve been building a new facility. So it’s more ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.'”
