$41.3 million
City Council voted to purchase the land for the arena deal a couple weeks ago, and today the deal was finalized and the details made public.
Here is the Edmonton Journal’s article: City spends $75M for land in arena deal
Here’s the City of Edmonton’s press release: City Acquires Arena and Community Rink Land for $25 Million
So which is it? $75 million or $25 million?
Neither, it’s $41.3 million.
Here’s the details:
- $24.6 million for the arena land (7 acres)
- $1.3 million for legal fees and carrying costs
- $15 million for the adjacent land (5 acres)
- $33.6 million for the land east of the Greyhound station (3.7 acres)
- -$33.6 million as Katz is buying this land back, and have already paid $16.8 million of it back
That last parcel of land is the result of the way the options were structured, I think. Either way, in the end, the City will have paid ~$41.3 million for 12 acres of downtown land.
I guess 41 is harder to type than 75 or 25? The spin in each of the headlines doesn’t help promote understanding of the deal, it confuses people.
Technically both the City and the Journal are correct. The City’s headline deals with just the land for the arena, and the Journal’s headline deals with the total amount spent rather than the final cost. But still, I think it confuses more than it helps.
