Article 5W326 Scott Radley: Was Tim Hortons Field built on a broken promise?

Scott Radley: Was Tim Hortons Field built on a broken promise?

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Scott Radley - Spectator Columnist
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In March 2015, just a few months before the Pan Am Games opened, a city presentation about the future of the new Tim Hortons Field pointed to 1,100 hours allocated for community use" for years to come.

It was a wonderful thing. An economically challenged area of town would have a facility heavily used not just by professional and high-performance athletes, but also by recreational and amateur athletes. That, after all, was supposed to be one of the key legacies of the project - one built with $145 million in public funds, including $50 million from the city.

We must remember the mandate of the Pan Am Games is to promote amateur sport," said then-Games CEO Ian Troop in 2011. This new proposal needs to fulfil that."

How has it done?

The stadium has unquestionably been good for the Ticats and Forge FC and their fans. With two pro teams calling it home, it's a busy place. It's brought a Grey Cup to town, held a World Cup qualifying match, and will soon host an NHL outdoor game. A terrific free soccer camp program has given some kids from the area a chance to get on the field, too. Those are real successes.

But that talk about 1,100 hours a year? Over the past five years, that's never been hit. In fact, it's never really been close.

Missing the target

Based on numbers provided by the city, there were 486.5 community hours of field rentals in 2017, which jumped to 724 the next year before falling to 558 in 2019. That is possibly related to Forge FC arriving - as anticipated - which required hours of field time for practices and games. COVID turned 2020 and 2021 (22 hours and 181 hours respectively) into writeoffs.

Meaning the target was off by 55 per cent, 34 per cent and 49 per cent in the three years before the pandemic.

In every case, the number isn't just below the ideal, it's actually less than the 841.5 hours of community time used at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 2010, according to another presentation to council, this time by the Ticats.

Granted, that number is believed to have included hours at the now-erased Brian Timmis Stadium that sat on-site. But however you parse it, even with a brand-new building and a mandate for community use, the community has actually lost usage time. That clearly isn't what was envisioned when this facility, built with taxpayers' money, was being pitched to the public.

And those hours it was used weren't just for sports. They include some time for filming on the field.

But couldn't that 1,100 hours have meant a combination of field and meeting room rental time? That would bring the amount of community time closer to the target since there have been 176 hours (2017), 238 hours (2018) and 333 hours (2019) of meeting room rentals.

Could be. Though another report to council in February 2015 that mentioned those 1,100 hours talked about them being available for high-performance athletes and community sports use.

Community sports use," it said, is defined as meaning non-professional, recreational multi-sport activities undertaken by individuals, associations, partnerships, etc., and includes field sport events only."

Rob Gatto is the city's manager of sports and entertainment facilities. He says there aren't too many stadiums in the country that host two professional teams and carry all the time demands that entails. So how would anyone know what it could handle until it was up and running?

How would they know what that number would be?" he asks.

Forge, Ticats practices

Gatto has a point. Especially when you consider the schedule during most of the good-weather time of the year. He explains that Forge FC gets the field for practice at about 8:30 a.m. from March until the end of its season. He says the Ticats then have it from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. most days throughout their season, which they're entitled to do as anchor tenants under the terms of their 20-year lease.

Add to that both teams' home games, the turnover time from soccer to football or vice versa, painting time for lines on the field, movie shoots - there have been a bunch - plus setup and teardown after concerts or events, and prime hours get even tighter.

That means for much of the year, community rentals (through the city which operates the stadium and handles public bookings) can generally only be accommodated between late afternoon (usually starting at 5 p.m.) and 11 p.m. on weekdays. Often there are hours available on weekends, too. Not everyone was in favour of the deal that led to that scenario.

We had a huge debate about the scheduling of that facility," says Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, who was chair of the city's Pan Am Games subcommittee.

Yet in the end, that 20-year contract with the Ticats passed by a 9-7 vote at council. He was on the losing side.

Dead of winter rentals?

Ward Dilse was responsible for marketing and programming of the stadium from 2013 until early 2016. He says available hours were never the issue. It's when those hours were - and are - available.

It was going to really be hard to hit those thresholds because of the times that the stadium just would not be booked," he says.

To reach 1,100 hours, the field would have to be rented an average of three hours every day of the year even in the dead of winter. Let's generously say that's unlikely from December through March when things can be unpleasant outside. That means the number needed the rest of the year to hit the target is over four hours a day. Busy nearly every single evening.

Of course, there is one asterisk beside all this.

According to a city report, The facility agreement between the Toronto 2015 organizing committee and the City of Hamilton calls for Tim Hortons Field to be made available for high-performance athletes and community sports use for 1,100 hours per year." Made available. It doesn't say it must be rented out for all that time. Since technically there is no breach of that, is this really an issue?

Actually, yes.

Leading up to the eventual opening of the stadium, community use was talked about a lot. It was a significant selling point. With good reason.

Children and youth living in poverty do not participate in recreation and physical activity as much as their wealthier peers do," said a study included in a 2011 report to the city about the feasibility of building the new stadium in the then-Ivor Wynne neighbourhood. They face many barriers that restrict access to quality recreation and physical activity opportunities, including lack of facilities in the community, transportation, family support, awareness, safe places to play and child care."

Desperate need in a disadvantaged area

Ward 3 has the second-lowest average household income in Hamilton - only Ward 2 is behind it according to city numbers - and contains the greatest number of single-parent families. Yet a map of municipal sports fields on the city website shows just two in the ward (plus Tim Hortons Field, and only one with a soccer/football field). Cathedral High School has the only other one in the area, meaning this disadvantaged area is almost field-free.

This facility was supposed to help with that.

On top of that, there seems to be some confusion about its purpose. Coun. Nrinder Nann, who represents Ward 3, says she's had plenty of questions about whether the stadium can be used by community groups.

If this is truly a public entity, then we need much more clarity around that community-use piece of the agreement and hold some accountability to it," she says.

Among those who're being squeezed? The schools neighbouring the stadium.

Prince of Wales and Bernie Custis students and staff have some access to the field," Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board spokesperson Shawn McKillop wrote in an email. During COVID the city made the field available for instructional day use. This year, issues arose with the field that required work to be completed in October. This took the field offline for some of our days of use."

He wasn't able to say how many hours they get. There is an agreement between the board and the city for use of the field for phys-ed and special education classes, and extracurricular time, but it includes no specific number of hours. Those change every year based on the needs of the primary tenants (Ticats and Forge), as well as maintenance or other demands.

We are currently working with the city to request an increase access to schools, including Prince of Wales and Bernie Custis Secondary School," he added.

More use for Bernie Custis school?

Jeff Kott would love that. The head football coach at Custis - which is directly across the street - says his team was able to use the stadium five or six times this past year. They were huge moments because the rest of the time his players had to practise on the small patch of grass in front of the school that has two hills.

Things were so challenging that his Tigers never got to practise kicking a single time (even when they got the stadium it was sometimes set up for soccer, he says), so they went for two-point conversions every time they scored a touchdown in their games.

Nann says she's heard from many parents and teachers from the school who have let her know they believe the students deserve better.

So what's happened?

There's an argument to be made that the community-use numbers presented in the midst of the heated stadium battle were theoretically achievable, but overly optimistic. Yet there's another factor, too.

The loss of Brian Timmis Stadium wiped out hundreds of hours of potential community time. These were supposed to be covered - and then some - by a new field on the site of the former Dominion Glass plant, four or five blocks north of Tim Hortons Field. Except it hasn't happened yet.

No date for new field

Nor will it for a while. There was optimism that construction on what will eventually be known as Brightside Park could begin this year. Meaning, within a year or two, a new artificial turf surface could be available for use.

Except the city says it has no start date for construction. A spokesperson said more details might be available in the spring, but ministry approval has not yet been received.

That's because Nann says it's under further environmental testing right now, so the most-hopeful time frame would see construction begin next spring, which would probably mean it wouldn't be ready until 2024.

If all goes well," she says.

That's a significant if."

Even when it's finished, it won't be particularly convenient for Prince of Wales or Bernie Custis students to get there. Not when it's a 10- or 15-minute walk away. Then the same back. But it would at least be better than the current scenario.

Possible solutions

Question is, why wait for that? There's no reason something couldn't be done to improve this right now.

Currently, all rentals at Tim Hortons Field - though the school board doesn't pay for time, according to McKillop - are paid users. Fees range from $67 an hour for affiliated youth teams to $134 an hour for unaffiliated youth teams and adults.

We can't deviate from that," says the city's director of facilities management, Rom D'Angelo. That's council approved."

Club teams or leagues from around town might be able to afford that but will a neighbourhood parent or community group be able to buy an hour or two of use when 41.4 per cent of those under 17 in the ward - roughly double the Hamilton average - are considered low income?

If some of the kids in the area don't have access to organized sports, will they ever have a chance to use the field that was built, in part, for them? Or what about a group of adults from the area that might want to play recreational soccer?

If council voted to allow some of those otherwise unused hours to be offered free for people in the ward or even worthy groups in the broader community, and gave the school board more time, the target numbers might be reached, the laudable goals for the building might be better achieved and more children from the area might get a chance to play in this public facility.

Yes, the city would be out some rental income. But the truth is, when the field is unused it's not generating revenue anyway.

There should be urgency for that to happen. If there are other good ideas out there, they should be explored, too. And all efforts should be made to expedite the work on Brightside Park.

As it stands now, an entire cohort of Custis students - maybe two - will finish their high school lives without really having proper access to a field and a generation of youth in the stadium area will have seen their childhood pass without much, if any, field time near them.

What do we need to pivot and shift in order to accommodate the multiple, multiple, multiple needs in the community?" Nann asks. And how are we making sure that the public asset of the stadium is part of the mix in a way that's accountable to the taxpayers?"

On the day in 2012 that some detailed plans for the stadium were being revealed, the late councillor Bernie Morelli echoed what had been said many times before and what would be said many times after.

The bottom line is we have to have significantly more public use of the new facility than we see now."

Nearly a decade later, it's time to ensure that finally happens.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com

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