Demolition of Montreal's Olympic Stadium will be expensive, but experts question the $2 billion price tag

MONTREAL — Quebec's tourism minister says it will cost $2 billion to demolish Montreal's Olympic stadium, but that estimate raises questions because other North American cities have demolished stadiums for hundreds of millions of dollars less.

Caroline Proulx earlier this week proposed a relatively inexpensive plan to spend $870 million to replace the unstable and dangerous roof of the stadium built for the 1976 Olympics. Due to the fragility of the roof, the venue cannot host games and exhibitions for half the year — events are canceled if there is more than three centimeters of snow.

But for years, Quebec politicians have said that continuing to maintain the stadium, even if its roof hasn't really worked since it was completed in 1987, is to get rid of the concrete behemoth on the city's east side. .

“It's more than I've ever heard of a stadium demolition,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, who specializes in the economics of sports.

For example, the domed soccer stadium in Atlanta, Germany, was replaced in 2017 at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion to demolish and build.

“It seems interesting that you could build a brand new stadium in Atlanta and tear down the old one like you did in Montreal,” Matheson said.

The cost of demolishing a sports field can vary. In 2017, an Ontario company received $2.1 million to demolish Regina's 33,350-seat soccer stadium; other hacks were more expensive. In Washington, the Robert Kennedy Memorial Stadium will be demolished in 2023 at a cost of 20 million US dollars, according to local media.

In New York City, demolition of the original Yankee Stadium cost about $25 million, according to The New York Times, but the city will spend another $25 million to turn the site into a park.

A 2009 report commissioned by the provincial agency that manages Montreal's Olympic Stadium put the cost of the demolition at up to $700 million, or about $965 million adjusted for inflation.

According to the report, one of the factors driving up the cost of the demolition is that the Olympic stadium cannot be detonated with explosives. Because the stadium is made of prestressed concrete, he said, controlled explosions could send concrete blocks flying hundreds of meters, raise a cloud of dust, and cause a shock wave that could damage the adjacent zoo and the subway tunnel below. .

A report prepared by engineering consultancy Séguin Ingénierie also ruled out wrecking ball demolition. The company behind the report, later renamed Génius Conseil, ceased commercial operations in 2014, a year after its president told a public inquiry about collusion and kickbacks in provincial government contracts. In 2020, he agreed to pay $300,000 to settle bid-rigging charges brought by the federal government.

Daniele Malomo, a professor of civil engineering at McGill University, said the cost of demolition could not be estimated without a comprehensive assessment, but he said the use of prestressed concrete would make the job more difficult.

“The problem with demolishing something like this is you can't just cut through concrete,” Malomo said in an interview.

Prestressed concrete is less likely to crack and more resistant to bending, but energy is released if the rebar wire inside it is stretched and the concrete shears, he said. “It acts like a bomb.”

Reducing the voltage and removing the armature wires would be a lengthy process, he said.

Bruno Massicotte, a professor of civil engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, said the infrastructure under the stadium, such as the subway, prohibits the use of explosives. “The uniqueness of this structure necessarily increases costs compared to other types of stadiums,” he wrote in an email. “But no justification was provided for the $2 billion.”

In addition to the cost of dismantling the stadium's 12,000 concrete components, the $2 billion price tag includes $158 million for inflation, $168 million for “minimum site rehabilitation” and $80 million to rehabilitate nearby roads after 20,000 trucks have driven through them, Parc Olympique said in an email. . and 30,000 times during hacking.

The most expensive stadium demolition in North America after Montreal is likely to be in Houston, Texas, where the estimated cost of demolishing the Astrodome is approximately $80 million. There, community members received state heritage status for what was the world's first domed stadium when it was built in 1965.

James Glassman, founder of the Houstonian preservation group, said many Houstonians have fond memories of sporting events or concerts at the stadium, which has become one of the city's few historic landmarks.

But with major league teams from the National Football League and Major League Baseball once calling the stadium home — the NFL left town in 1996 and the MLB team has played in a new stadium since 1999 — community organizations are trying to find creative new uses. for the structure, he said.

“Once he's gone, he's gone for good, so be careful, it's easy to get into demolition fever, but who's going to pay to bring him down?” Who benefits? What is going on in his place? If the land is needed for something else, there's a good reason to be there, but if it's not, it's not a terrible decision to let it stand,” Glassman said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on February 10, 2024.

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press