Pan Am Games a chance to show off Hamilton's progress and optimism: Eisenberger

The Pan Am Games are well underway, with Hamilton playing host to every soccer game in the newly christened CIBC Hamilton Pan Am Soccer Stadium, known better as Tim Hortons Field.

But the path to getting ready for the games hasn't been easy for Hamilton, so says Mayor Fred Eisenberg.

He spoke with CBC's Heather Hiscox Friday morning about the difficulties with the stadium's construction, and why it was so important for Hamilton to host these games.

Below is an abridged and edited version of that interview:

Hiscox: How do you describe the vibe in Hamilton right now?

Eisenberger: There's a lot of excitement in Hamilton. Not only in the stadium, but ethnic cultural events. We have a great event in Gage Park over the beginning week – the It's Your Festival coordinated with Pan Am, downtown Gore is a party every day, seemingly, Barton Street has lots of activity there. So everybody's getting into it, taking advantage of it, coming into town and showing off our city.

H: This is not something that many cities ever get a chance to host – something this big for this long. They don't teach it in municipal politics 101. What has the experience been like?

E: Well we've got a great team. This is not the first bid we've done. We've been in on another different games, including the commonwealth games. So we've got some good experience and good lessons learned from other bid organizers in the past. I recall a community in England, and we spent some time over there learning from the lessons they learned from their activities. So we've got some great staff that have done a fabulous job. They're well organized and they've made an event that is running very smoothly.

H: But the lead up to today was not so smooth. This is a stadium that had the most chaos surrounding it.

E: Thanks for reminding me (laughs).

H: But I don't need to remind you because I have your own quote to read. The mayor during his state of the city address said last April, 'Everytime I talk about the stadium I feel like I need to go into therapy." That's what you said at the time. There were so many delays, so many problems with construction, you actually wrote to the premier saying the games are in jeopardy. Why did it go so far off the rails in this particular case?

E: Well it was predominantly built by Infrastructure Ontario, and a contractor. The city of Hamilton actually didn't have much to do with it in terms of the design and construction. I mean, we just opened the facilities a month ago. It takes time to fit up the building and get the staff familiar with how it operates. So we were really looking at a crunch time for how we were going to prepare for the games that were going to happen whether we liked it or not. It was critical that we needed to send that message to the province and Infrastructure Ontario that we're squeezing the envelope. We need time to get in here and retrofit the building to get ready for the Pan Am Games. So just in the nick of time, but there was a lot of effort from a lot of people.

H: I know you were meeting business representatives from different countries participating in the games. Mexico in particular has been a focus for Hamilton in forging deeper ties. What are you hoping economically comes of this?

E: Mexico is a particular tie because we have Grupo Bimbo, who owns Canada Bread here in Hamilton, they took it over about a year ago. We're looking to grow the agri-business so Mexico is a particular target for that. Brazil and Columbia equally as much. We're really trying to realize the economic benefit of the games.  All the business people that are coming here, we're aware of, we're inviting them in, we're sitting down with them and telling them what Hamilton's about.

H: Any deals?

E: Well, it usually doesn't happen during the games, but it's developing relationships that are going to be good for us over the long term. That's really what it's all about.

H: Tangibly, you might get some business from this. You've got a $145 million stadium right in your community now. But the intagibles – I remember when Winnipeg hosted in 1999, it wasn't so much for the buildings or the infrastructure. Winnipeg hosted to boost civic pride, to boost self-confidence when the city was down. For Hamilton, talk about that part of hosting these games.

E: [It's] a great opportunity for Hamilton to remind everyone that we're on an upcurve. This investment was really the beginning of a significant series of investments that have been happening in Hamilton. Just recently the province announced a billion dollars for an LRT line, an opportunity to create an economic uplift and move more people through our city. Go Transit enhancements as well, and our development regime is now on the uptrend, so things are looking up very nicely for Hamilton right now. We're seeing cranes in our downtown, new redevelopment projects coming, billions of dollars of development projects in the last three or four years. It's been a long time to get there. Hamilton has had its downside, but we're now recapturing that momentum and feel really good about where we're going.

H: And the Pan Am Games obviously playing a big part of it.

E: Absolutely.