SMU seeks help with aging stadium

Saint Mary's University is looking for help with Huskies Stadium.

The 40-year-old stadium is showing its age and the Halifax university is looking for partners to help spruce it up or replace it.

Concrete has crumbled away, creating uneven steps that are a danger to any one walking upor down them.

Mould is in the press box area andisnow off limits.

SaintMary'sknows repairs need to be made or a newstadium built, but the universitycan't afford to do it alone.

"We're open to partners, federal, provincial, corporate, whatever it is," said university spokesman Steve Proctor. "If someone wants to approach us and has a vision for it, we can create a shared vision together. Let's do it."

While the university isn't tapped out, it has already invested in other projects, including almost $12 million in the 58-year-old McNally building retrofit.

Ground has been broken on the Homburg Health and Wellness Centre,an $8 million project, and another $4 million has been earmarked to replace the Saint Mary's Arena.

"Our current plan is to look and see what we can do to make it as workable as we can in the short term," Proctor said.

Finding government fundingmight be difficult because of competing efforts. Halifax, for instance,hopes to be a player in Canada's bid to host the 2015 Women's World Cup of Soccer. This could leverage federal dollars for a stadium on the Shannon Park waterfront site in Dartmouth.