Surrey businessman aims to fill city's venue void with 10,000-seat arena

Inde Sumal — an investment banker born and raised in Surrey — believes there is a void for concert and sports venues in Metro Vancouver.

Sumal says there are plenty of events that are too small for Rogers Arena, but are too big for Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at UBC or the Langley Events Centre.

"Our vision is a 10,000 seat arena in Surrey that's close to transit that would be able to encompass lacrosse games, indoor hockey games, concerts and festivals," he said.

"You don't need a lot of space to build an arena of that size."

The project has been on the city's radar for months, but Mayor Linda Hepner says discussions have recently heated up.

"It's a little early to talk about where we are on it, because we're very early in the process," she said.

"We do have some significant [investors with] deep pockets talking to us in a very serious way."

Sumal says all the money is in place, but the project is still in preliminary stages.

Where will it go?

There are several options for potential locations, including the Bridgeview area near Scott Road SkyTrain Station.

He says Surrey residents are used to riding the SkyTrain to downtown Vancouver for events, so he'd like to give them the option to stay closer to home.

"If you see a hockey game at Rogers Arena today and you took the SkyTrain after the event and you look at where those commuters are traveling to, they're traveling to Surrey," he said.

"What we're trying to do is alleviate some of that pressure to see if we can't host some of those events in Surrey."

Sumal says Surrey is big enough to support its own hockey team, possibly from the AHL or WHL, but he believes an arena will be financially viable even without a sports franchise.

Will it work?

Hepner says the city would consider offering up some land for the project, but she will leave it up to investors to raise all the capital.

Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University, says the city would be wise to stay away from taking on any financial risk.

"The issue for Surrey to avoid is the sort of tax concessions and supports, which aren't actual tax dollars that are handed over, but they are government subsidies," he said.

"That's where the trouble starts."

Lander says arenas tend to succeed when they are built in neighbourhoods that are already up and coming.

He says, however, residents should be wary of politicians who promise that new jobs and businesses will flock to venues that are built in the middle of nowhere.

"That's almost never true," he said.

"If you already have a neighbourhood that's growing, a stadium can accelerate that growth but it's not the cause of the growth."