The Aud

[jeffster]

It's not a 'trivial' amount compared to what falls. You're looking at very cold, condensed frozen water in a very small place to put it. You can't compare it to snow.

Numbers or I call BS. Not to be blunt, but as far as I can see, thousands of trucks full of snow fall on the paved parts of the City every year. Of course, most of it never ends up in a truck because it just gets pushed to the side of the street to melt in the Spring. How many truckloads would the arena generate? Would it even be one per day? I think a large arena can afford to load one truck full of snow and dump it somewhere off site. And if this is an environmental problem then all the other activities of the arena are a much bigger environmental problem.

Also, what is the difference between “very cold, condensed frozen water” and snow? I know the arena “snow” arises from a different process so may have a different physical form, but it turns into the exact same stuff when it melts so I fail to see why it can’t just be piled anywhere that other snow may be piled.

First, it's a different snow, very different. You need to understand that most snow falls in temperature below zero, and very fluffy, an generally they average 1/10 the weight of water. Ice from arenas are shaved off the rink surface, and is heavier than 'heavy' snow. Refrigeration plants in arena's tend to operate around 10ºF (this is the brine solution temperature) - so normally you have 8-10ºF going out, and 10-12ºF coming back in (the ice temp). When you have heavy snow, it's usually closer to 32ºF, therefore a much different melting time.

I couldn't hazard a guess on how many 'truck loads' you'd be looking at, as it depends on how much the facility was used, how much maintenance is being done (which is weekly), who the rentals or tenants are. It could be 1 or 2 truck loads a day or more on a maintenance day. If you're doing flood correctly, you should be taking half a box off, and you probably could get 5 or 6 1/2 boxes into a truck. If you have 16 proper floods in a day, that might be 2.5 dump trucks roughly. Them you'd need to have staff also use a front loader or other equipment to put snow into truck.

I'm not saying that it can't be done. What I am saying is that this city has gone eco friendly and I can't see them expending large amounts of energy and man hours to get rid of snow, something that is basically done for free right now.

Unrelated, something else: I did notice with the superimposed picture -- our property isn't even close to the same size as Londons, maybe 1/2 size, if that. The building itself would fit on the property, but there would be no room for anything else, including important things like accessible parking, trade show parking, parking for tractor-trailers. You literally could not have any special events at The Aud at that location, unless you were willing to purchase nearby properties and possibly reroute the LRT. Looking at other facilities, you do notice a lot of available land (be it parking lots or simply open spaces that are cement), something the old terminal falls short of. I'm trying to figure out what options this location would have in order to do the above.

When you have a band on tour, for example, many of them stay in motorhomes/outfitted busses on the property, with electrical being fed in and they might leave the next morning. When you have shows that have more than 1 performance, like Paw Patrol, they too will stay overnight on the property for 2 or 3 nights. This, for example, is something that London can accommodate, and so can Toronto, as both have huge area's outside the complex. If we're building a new and larger facility to draw more shows, whatever they may be, this will be a deal breaker for a lot of them. For sure you'd have a roof that can handle whatever rigging setup that you may want, but you won't be able to accommodate the actual vehicles that carry the equipment. Would Kitchener be worth the hassle to renting huge amounts of hotel rooms, especially if staying more than one night? Will drivers be OK not being close to the facility after dropping off equipment? Will the public be OK when tractor-trailers are blocking the road for hours at a time?

We would for sure need to figure out a lot of things if we wanted a DT auditorium. But I just can't see how the old terminal would ever make a suitable location. It's simply way too small.