Montreal helps fund Molson Stadium expansion

With the approval of a $4 million grant from the City of Montreal’s executive committee,the Montreal Alouettes football club is another step closer to adding 5,000 seats to McGill University’s Percival Molson Stadium in time for the 2010 season.

Infrastructure

Montreal

With the City of Montreal’s executive committee having approved a $4 million grant to the Montreal Alouettes football club, the team is another step closer in its plan to expand McGill University’s Percival Molson Stadium by additional 5,000 seats for the start of the 2010 season.

The plan also calls for the construction of 18 private boxes.

The Alouettes will contribute $4.3 million to the project. The federal and provincial governments are expected to contribute $10.2 million.

“The planning for the construction will probably start as soon as we get the approval,” said Louis-Philippe Dorais, the Alouettes director of media relations. “We don’t expect the construction to start until the end of 2008. We still need to do a lot of planning. We can’t get everything done at once because of McGill’s situation. They have events which they need to hold between April and mid-December.”

The expansion will be subject to a public tendering process.

The south side of the stadium will be the focus of construction. To add 3,500 seats requires removal of 1,500 seats prior to construction. The new stands will be placed at an angle that the does not block the view of the city from the north stands.

“We can raise it a little bit, but not too much,” said Dorais. “On the north side, we will continue the stands a little bit further east and the end zone will have permanent seating rather than temporary seating.”

The permanent seating at the eastern end zone will require the removal of trees and loss of green space. This concerned various environmental and local groups.

“That has been pretty much all taken care of,” said Dorais. “We have worked with all the groups that were concerned about environmental concerns. We are going to plant 300 trees to replace the trees that we are going to cut.”

Currently there are two model private boxes along the north stands. The others are temporary tents.

“We want to build permanent boxes that have the actual look of a private box,” said Dorais.

The expansion is critical for the team’s financial survival. Having 25,000 seats, would increase annual revenues by $2.5 million.

“We have the smallest stadium in the CFL and it is unrealistic to expect the team to survive in a stadium that small,” said Dorais.

“We are a gate revenue product and we have to make sure that we maximize revenues from the gate.”