3 developers offer land for Halifax stadium

Halifax Regional Council has started looking around for a place to build a stadium, and three private bidders offered up some land for sale to the city this week.

Two of them are old quarries.

ParkdaleDevelopments wants to sell the city 50 hectares of land along Highway 102 next to the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, and the group that owns Dartmouth Crossing is offering a similar sized lot near its shopping village.

Anne-Louise McKinnon, Dartmouth Crossing's general manager, said the site is perfect.

"Right now, where we're standing, we're all serviced for electrical and natural gas so we could easily put up a new stadium and it's very close to the highway so ingress and egress is quite convenient," she said Friday.

The site must be large enough to build 20,000 seats, and it has to be close to a 100 series highway.

Saint Mary's University wants the city to consider renovations to Huskies stadium.

The site that usually comes to mind is Shannon Park, an abandoned armed forces neighourhood owned by the federal government.

But Northwest Arm- South End Coun. Sue Uteck doesn't think it's the site.

"Well, Shannon Park, we abandoned that before the Commonwealth Games because it was a $33-million rehab. So I'm sure that's why the federal government is anxious to hand it to us," she said.

Utecka Saint Mary's alumnibelieves a revamped Huskies Stadium would be a good fit.

She said parking is limited, but there are solutions.

"I don't believe it will be a problem. You have Point Pleasant Park. You have Pier 21. You have a bus service. You have a shuttle service from anywhere downtown," she said. "I don't believe that parking will be an issue."

Council still hasn't signed off on a plan to build a stadium. If and when it does, it's expected as many as a dozen sites will be on the table.

If Halifax wants to remain in the running as a host city for the FIFA World Women's Soccer Event in 2015, it has to make a final decision on the construction of a stadium by December.