Stay Gauld

Statement from Kareem Allam, Mayoral Candidate for the Vancouver Liberals: Let’s save the Whitecaps. Here is how: With bidders now entering the process to purchase the Whitecaps who want to move the team, the likelihood of the team staying has decreased. But it’s not impossible to keep them. It will take courage, hard work, and sincerity—none of which we’ve had from Mayor Ken Sim. 1) The PNE site offer was a distraction. A feasibility study for a new ballpark there, with adjacent activations, quickly shows that without rapid transit (SkyTrain), the project won’t pencil out. 2) Being away from the downtown core negatively impacts suite capacity and the entertainment district, both essential to making the finances work. 3) This Whitecaps problem didn’t emerge in the past three months. It has been on the books for at least a decade. 4) To ensure a new local bidder doing due diligence on a significant acquisition can outbid others or at least give the MLS Commissioner pause, the project site needs to be much more substantial. 5) There has only ever been one site that works: the original Central Waterfront District proposal Kerfoot suggested in the 2000s. 6) Kerfoot still owns that land, but CPKC Rail owns the right of way on top of it. 7) What’s changed since that plan? The Minnesota Twins built a ballpark over railroad tracks, demonstrating that safety and engineering technology have come a long way. Wrigley Field, Minute Maid Park, and T-Mobile Park are all adjacent to or over rail lines. There are dozens of other examples. 8) Rather than dig into the file over the past four years, Ken Sim ignored it. He could have used this knowledge to bring rail companies, the Port, and the Feds together. The city also owns land immediately adjacent to the Kerfoot lands—at the nexus of a SeaBus line, two SkyTrain lines, and the West Coast Express—in the heart of our corporate core. 9) If we’re going to keep the team, we need the best. It’s time to hire Mortensen, who helped lead the Twins stadium project, and get to work to show local bidders and regulators a path to real financial viability, along with feasible engineering and safety—not a PR sleight of hand with the PNE site. 10) We don’t have anymore time to waste. Let’s save the Whitecaps!