General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

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I would leave the Aud where it is.  Build a new one beside it, and then demolish the old building and put a park and a new baseball/soccer field.  Also the new Aud should be at least 15'000 capacity. (My dream anyway)

This is obviously a different conversation, although I prefer a DTK arena. I think the current Aud Lands could be transformed into an amazing sports and entertainment district with housing, park space, office, retail, an arena (12,000) and a soccer/ football stadium for the NSL/CPL/ CFL/ host big university games (roughly 15,000) look at what the NWSL is building in Denver colorado..... One can dream. This might have happened if Blackberry didn't fumble the smartphone so spectacularly, unfortunately there just isn't that much individual personal wealth in KW right now.  There is no appetite for government funds to go to a project like this though. I dream that sports leaders in the Region could make a push for a commonwealth games or something like that to get serious Federal and provincial funding like edmonton, calgary and hamilton have gotten in the past, but the security costs have made it impossible for cities to host these large scale events now a days.

I would argue that there is more than enough personal wealth here, it's just a matter of inspiring people to give money to local causes that need our support.  The Waterloo Region Community Foundation manages $144 million in investments spread among 429 funds (some are quite small, others are significantly larger), and distributes over $7 million per year (and more than $89 million since the fund was launched).  The local hospital foundations, universities and the Symphony  and the Symphony have done great jobs of inspiring giving and support. The numbers listed here are for endowments or restricted funds but to not include other flow through funds that are donated and spent in a given year.  That's a much larger research project.

• $49 million for GRHF
  
• $55 million for St Mary's Hospital Foundation
  
• $10 million for Cambridge Hospital 
  
• $524 million at Waterloo
  
• $120 million at WLU
  

Conestoga College raised $13 million in the last reporting period but some of that came through other funds.  I couldn't find anything about a Conestoga College Foundation.  The WRDSB has their WEFI fund which holds about $2 million while the WCDSB has funds in the Catholic Community Foundation of Waterloo Region.

Moderators: I don't know if there should be a thread labeled, "Philanthropy in Waterloo Region" or called something else