Halifax council votes unanimously to moves ahead with CFL stadium proposal

The partnership – comprising AMJ Campbell Van Lines president Bruce Bowser and former Arizona Coyotes co-owners Anthony LeBlanc and Gary Drummond – is in talks with the Canadian Football League to secure an expansion franchise for Halifax for the 2021 season, conditional on a stadium.

The group has since met with Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) staff, provincial staff and Premier Stephen McNeil.

A report to regional council last week revealed MFLP’s pitch to build a 24,000-seat stadium in Shannon Park, a 38-hectare area on the Dartmouth side of the MacKay Bridge that was used for military housing from the 1950s until the early 2000s.

That pitch was debated at council Tuesday afternoon, where the topic of financing was top of mind, as it still isn’t clear how much public funding would go into the project if HRM were to partner with MFLP.

The report says the stadium would cost $170- to $190 million and proposes a controversial model called tax increment financing (TIF) to pay, at least in part, to build it. A TIF model requires borrowing money upfront and then paying it back through increased property taxes in the surrounding area.

That method was questioned at length at Tuesday’s council meeting. Counc. Steve Adams wondered what would happen if the TIF couldn’t provide enough financing, while Counc. Tim Outhit asked who would carry the debt.

Dube said MFLP would own the stadium and therefore carry the debt.

Further capital could be required from HRM to build the appropriate infrastructure for the development, like roads and transit.