Calgary Stampede received $90M land deal as part of Scotia Place agreements – Calgary

As part of the agreements to build the new event centre, the Calgary Stampede is set to receive nearly $90 million in land deals from the city.

The dollar figure was revealed in a briefing note to city councillors on the Stampede’s finances, as the land exchange agreement signed between the city and Stampede is largely redacted.

According to the briefing, the Stampede saw an $89.9 million gain for the land transactions that were part of the Event Centre agreement, which included a land sale of $23 million and land swap worth $66.9 million.

“It’s largely a paper gain,” said Calgary Stampede CEO Joel Cowley.  “It’s the difference between the current fair market value of the lands that were either sold or traded and the book value of our lands which dates back primarily to the 1990s.”

Both agreements combined allowed city ownership of the land where Scotia Place is being built, the briefing said, and the exchanged lands are “estimated to be of equal value.”

The City of Calgary also received control of the roads in the area, which were previously under Stampede’s jurisdiction.

The land acquired by the Calgary Stampede includes the Saddledome site once it’s demolished as well as Weadickville, according to the land exchange agreement.

Cowley said the Stampede is currently working on a design to develop a hotel on the nearly two acre Weadickville site, to add to two more potential hotel developments near the BMO Centre and Cowboys Casino with the potential for nearly 1,000 rooms.

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“That will definitely allow the BMO Centre to fulfil its potential as a convention destination and drive tremendous economic impact for Calgary by putting heads in beds and people in restaurants,” Cowley told Global News.

According to the city, the Stampede enabled land transactions allowed the size of Scotia Place to be 40 per cent larger than the previous agreement.

Aside from the land trade, the City of Calgary also purchased two acres of land from the Stampede on the west side of Stampede Trail across from the Scotia Place site.

As part of the event centre agreements, the City of Calgary is giving Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) the option to purchase up to four nearby parcels within two years of moving into the new event centre.

CSEC will also have the right to first offer to develop the Calgary Transit bus barns in Victoria Park over a 10-year term.

According to the agreements, CSEC’s offer on the land options would need to be of “fair market value,” which would be determined by an accessor agreed upon by both parties.

“This is becoming a common trend across North America, is the arena is really a small part of a much broader land play,” said Moshe Lander, an economist at Concordia University.

“It’s no surprise it’s happening in Calgary when you have that huge parcel of underdeveloped land that is just ripe to have development put on it.”

According to Lander, CSEC stands to benefit from the deal with potential for another revenue source outside of ticket sales, and television rights.

“There’s a finite number of games that are going to be held in an event centre, there’s a limit as to how high you can increase ticket prices,” Lander said.

“Where are you going to find new sources of revenue if you have a TV deal that’s sewn up and essentially an upper limit to how much revenue you can generate?  You start looking at the land around the arena.”

As for the Stampede land, Cowley said $25.4 million was used to pay down debt and another $4.2 million was used towards working capital.

The lease for Scotia Place begins in September 2026 with the doors set to open in the fall of the following year.

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