Toronto’s BMO Field is an oval built of steel, from its audience seating to its metal decks and corporate boxes. If Tim Leiweke, president & CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) has his way, a lot more steel could soon be added to it, from expanded seating to a new roof.
The City of Toronto owns BMO Field while MLSE owns its prime tenant, Major League Soccer team Toronto FC.
However, Leiweke has gone on record stating that the private sector should be funding the bulk of North American stadium construction.
It’s no surprise, then, that he intends to put a roof on the stadium at MLSE’s expense.
“If you go back 30 or 40 years, the majority of our venues in North America were built by the public and that has shifted to where the private sector is taking on the majority of that load as they should,” he told audiences at the national conference of the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships in December.
“We will fix that team. But we also need to fix that stadium. If you’re a season ticket holder, you got rained on for 17 out of 19 games. I’m a little slow, so it took me to the 16th home game to figure out that we needed a roof.”
It’s the sporting industry’s worst-kept secret that MLSE has an eye on owning the Toronto Argonauts, whose Rogers Centre contract runs out in 2017. BMO Field was designed to accommodate 8,000 additional seats, which would bring seating capacity up to a more Argo-friendly 30,000.
Theoretically, MLSE could put a roof on a BMO Field, expand it to Canadian Football League (CFL) field standards then host all regular season Argo home games there.
That would—even more theoretically—free up Rogers Centre for the arrival of an NFL franchise. Also on the table, the potential spectacle of an open-air National Hockey League game featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs at BMO Field.
Leiweke has floated expansion project budget figures of in excess of $100 million, considerably more than the $63-million it cost to build the original stadium. Half that budget would go to a new roof, while the other half would be used to upgrade the stadium.
BMO Field is operated under the umbrella of Exhibition Place. The chairman of the board of Exhibition Place, Toronto city councilor Mark Grimes, says he’s all ears when MLSE talks about improvements to the stadium at no cost to taxpayers.
“There were always plans to expand the stadium,” says Grimes.
“I’ve been in conversation with Tim Leiweke about the possibility of expanding it to accommodate CFL football, although exactly how many seats that would entail we’ll have to find out.”
Grimes says that there are currently no finalized roof designs being presented, although there’s been talk of some sort of cantilevered roof as MLSE engages in exploratory talks with architects.
“There are many discussions going on and we’re all doing our due diligence,” he says.
“If MLSE wants to expand BMO Field on time and on budget, we can look at how they can recoup some of their money, although the city manager would have to be involved in that. When a plan comes forward, we’ll make sure that we get a deal that’s right for all of the partners. I think I have Mr. Leiweke’s ear in that I am a big CFL fan and that we need to get the Argos on stable ground.”
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