Budget estimate on Saskatoon’s DEED unlikely before summer

Concept plans for a new Saskatoon Downtown Event and Entertainment District were unveiled on Feb. 8 at TCU Place, complete with a special cake and virtual reality goggles.

While the designs included many features — an arena that could eventually provide seats for up to 18,000 people, a renovated convention centre, theatre, extensive pedestrian boulevards, public spaces, and a transit hub — no estimated cost was provided.

While speaking with reporters, Coun. Cynthia Block said announcing numbers could take a while.

“That is in preparation and it will be coming to us in the coming weeks and months,” she said at the time.

Coun. Troy Davies also said it was important to have the plans ready when a potential partner was identified.

“When those opportunities do present themselves, we have this plan shelf-ready and we can hand that binder over and say, ‘Look, it’s ready to go,’ ” he added.

According to a report that’s to be presented to councillors at Wednesday’s governance and priorities committee meeting, the earliest a public budget could be unveiled would be in June or July.

In a statement to 650 CKOM, director of technical services Dan Willems said while the city sent out Request for Proposals packages on Feb. 15 to potential pre-qualified partners, administration is limited in what it can say at this point.

“The Request for Proposals package is not due until March 22. As you’re familiar with the city’s practice, you’ll understand it does not comment in a substantive way on an open bid opportunity as we do not want to negatively impact the fairness element that is a pre-requisite for every public procurement process,” read the statement.

If there are no extensions requested, a panel will then evaluate the submissions and rank them sometime in April.

From there, according to the report, “negotiations would then be undertaken with the preferred proponent to further refine details surrounding the various elements of the preferred proponent’s proposal, and to determine financial implications of various options.”

A negotiation process could take another 60 days.

“Therefore, the updated anticipated timing for reporting back on budget estimate, preliminary funding strategy, and the private partner procurement is June or July 2024,” the report continued.

Willems said the report to councillors outlines the rationale for presenting the funding strategy and the possibility of managing the event centre/arena jointly with the city and a private partner.