The Aud

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I think behind the twin pads would be an ideal location, where Centennial Stadium use to be.

I'll be very surprised if the city does something not along the ION route, and at least somewhat surprised if it's not downtown. The benefits to downtown business would be significant, the parking already exists in far greater quantities than the Aud site. It also generally fits with the current city priority of revitalizing downtown.

I know some like the idea of a downtown arena, but if Hamilton serves as a lesson, is that smaller cities do have a difficult time filling up their arena's with their regular tenants. Parking in Hamilton is horrible, just a lot of walking and not great for people with limited mobility. So you would have to wonder how the Rangers would do in a bad season -- will people want to pay $15+ for parking, walk 10 or 15 minutes or more to get to The Aud? Both City Hall garage and D&O have limited space due to monthly passes. Of the 3,400 spots in DTK, there might only be 1,700 available for use at night (this includes the Library parking lot and garage, and The Kitchener Market garage - a bit of a walk), if that. Unsure how Market Square or Manulife could factor in but 1,700 spots simply isn't enough.

I can see the city doing a game day rate of $5 flat parking starting at 6pm or something. No reason it would be $15, even at currently hourly rates a game just isn't that long. I don't see monthly passes being a huge factor. Except for a small number of spots at Duke/Ontario monthly passes don't come with reserved spots, just general access to the garage. The city can calculate how many monthly parkers are there in the evening, reduce a bit for margin of safety, and sell the rest.

3400 is just the city-owned spots. Market Square has a huge garage, with another several hundred spots. A number of downtown office buildings also have underground parking that they'd probably happily sell to the public if there was a market for it. I think the DTK parking total is more like 5000-6000 spots. The current Aud has less than 1700 spots, so I wouldn't say it's "simply not enough". Even if the venue is larger there's the ION/GRT factor with being downtown.