Thunderwolves won't play all games at proposed event centre: report

Superior Morning5:06Proposed Event Centre - Parking and Costs

Two themes emerged at Thunder Bay's city council meeting last night - parking and costs. We'll hear how the concerns of council were addressed

The Lakehead University Thunderwolves will not play all of their games at the new arena, a new report says.

City councillors in Thunder Bay received another feasibility study on the proposed event centre at their meeting Monday night. They learned the team would play roughly a dozen of its “marquee games” at the new facility.

"Understand that, right now, it's not all of the games would be played there because of the fact that they wouldn't draw the amount, and the operating cost within the facilities for their given nights wouldn't justify all their games being in there,” said Gary Green, who is part of the Thunder Bay LIVE! consortium hoping to build the event centre.

Green didn't have details on where the Thunderwolves would play the rest of their games.

Councillor Larry Hebert wanted more details on where the team would play and said he thought the Port Arthur Arena would be too small.

“It has the next most number of seats. So, I'd like an explanation of what those are going to be."

Parking plans

The other big surprise in the report involves parking.

The city's manager of realty services said the city will create more parking spaces.

"The city has been seeking properties to use for event centre parking,” Joel DePeuter said.

“Some of those purchases are outright purchases. There are other purchases that are conditional on the event centre moving forward."

The city will also create three new parking lots — one on Cumberland Street, one on Tupper Street, and another that will be located between Water Street and the rail line.

About 500 new spaces are expected to be created, but the cost of the lots was not specified in the report.

Council will debate the report, again, at a meeting Sept 29.