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

Quebec's tourism minister said demolition of Montreal's Olympic stadium would cost $2 billion, but that estimate raises questions because other North American cities have demolished stadiums for hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper.

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 in the middle of the year, as events are canceled if there is more than three centimeters of snow.

But for years, Quebec politicians have argued that instead of getting rid of the concrete giant east of the city, continuing to maintain the stadium, even if its roof has never functioned since its completion in 1987, is a sensible option. – The end.

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

For example, in Atlanta, Georgia, a domed football stadium was replaced in 2017 at a cost of US$1.6 billion.

“It seems alarming that Atlanta can build a brand new stadium and tear down the old one for the same price as tearing down the one in Montreal,” Matheson said.

The cost of demolishing a sports field can vary. In 2017, an Ontario company was awarded $2.1 million to demolish the 33,350-seat Regina football stadium; Other hacks were more expensive. In Washington, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium will be demolished in 2023 for $20 million, according to local media.

New York City is estimated to cost $25 million to demolish the original Yankee Stadium, according to the New York Times, although the city will spend another $25 million to turn the site into a park.

A 2009 report commissioned by the regional agency that manages Montreal's Olympic Stadium estimated the cost of the demolition at $700 million — about $965 million after adjusting for inflation.

According to the report, one of the factors driving up the demolition cost 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 create a shock wave that could damage the adjacent zoo and the subway tunnel below. .

A report by engineering consulting firm Seguin Ingenierie also denies tampering with the ball. The company behind the report, later renamed Genius Conseil, went out of business in 2014, a year after its president faced a public inquiry into collusion and kickbacks in regional government contracts. In 2020, he agreed to pay $300,000 to settle bid-rigging charges brought by the federal government.

McGill University civil engineering professor Daniel Malomo said it was impossible to estimate the cost of demolition without a comprehensive assessment, but he said using prestressed concrete would complicate the task.

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

Prestressed concrete is less prone to cracking and more resistant to bending, but the reinforcing wire inside is stretched, and if the concrete is sheared, energy is released, he says. “It basically acts like a bomb.”

He said stress relief and removal of reinforcement wires would be a lengthy process.

According to Bruno Massicot, professor of civil engineering at the Polytechnic University of Montreal, the infrastructure under the stadium, such as the subway, does not allow for 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 offered 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 once construction is complete, Olympic Park said. in the e-mail. Trucks pass 20,000 meters. And 30 thousand times during the violation.

The costliest stadium demolition in North America after Montreal could be in Houston, Texas, where the expected cost to demolish the Astrodome is about $80 million. There, community members received state heritage status for the stadium, which was the world's first domed stadium when it was built in 1965.

James Glassman, founder of the Houstonian Historic 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 teams from the National Football League and Major League Baseball once calling the stadium home — the NFL team left the city in 1996 and the MLB team has been playing in a new stadium since 1999 — community organizations are trying to find creative solutions and uses. , he said. New to the build.

“Once it's gone forever, so be careful. It's easy to get caught up in the hype, but who pays for it? Who benefits? What will happen in its place? If the land is needed for something, Glassman said, “otherwise, there's an obvious reason, but if not, letting it stand is not a terrible decision.”

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