High construction cost blamed for pause on Saskatoon soccer stadium

Saskatoon’s proposed soccer stadium is getting a yellow card, but not because it picked up a foul.

Dan Kemppainen, CEO of Prairieland Park, said the project’s high construction cost is the reason why the plans to bring a Canadian Premier League team and soccer-specific stadium to Saskatoon are on hold.

“There’s lots of factors of change since we started this,” Kemppainen explained.

“We were certainly gung ho and optimistic we could make this project happen, but the cost of infrastructure has gone up significantly. You can look around at other projects around the city or province and see how the costs are spiraling out of control. It’s no different for us, too. That plays a big factor.”

The initial cost of the stadium was pegged at $28 million. Kemppainen couldn’t give a specific number for how much more the stadium would cost if shovels were in the ground, but said the total was approaching $30 million.

While the news release posted publicly on Tuesday said the partners were “adjourning” talks to build the stadium, Kemppainen said that for now, they’re just pausing the plans.

“It’s not really dead; it’s more of a pause,” Kemppainen said. “A lot of people are asking us where the project is at, and we thought we’d owe them (an answer). Sometimes in business you’ve got to make these tough decisions and say for the time being, we’re just going to take a pause.”

With the soccer stadium plans on hold, some might wonder if Prairieland Park could bring horse racing back to the grounds, but Kemppainen was definitive in saying that won’t be happening.

“Horse racing was a decision made independently of soccer. The timing just happened to be very close to each other,” he said.

“Horse racing had not been sustainable for many years, and we’ve actually donated any of the horse-track-related assets to the project that’s going to be built north of Saskatoon. We won’t be racing at Prairieland Park again.”

While the plan for a soccer stadium has been paused, Kemppainen said he would still like to see a stadium built on the grounds one day. He encouraged fans and supporters to “remain optimistic that someday this project could come back to the forefront and become a priority, and we could engage on this again.”

Kemppainen said there’s already been quite a bit of investment into the project, which could be used in the future.

“We’ve done a lot of good work,” he said. “We’ve certainly put a lot of time and energy into this, and spent some dollars into studies, so we’ve got a lot of good intel. Hopefully someday we could carry this on.”

Living Sky Sports and Entertainment was one of the partners involved in attempting to bring a soccer stadium to Saskatoon. The group’s founder Al Simpson declined to comment on the decision made yesterday.

Neither Simpson nor Prairieland Park would comment on a lawsuit they’re currently facing.

In February, the lawsuit was launched by Novatrek Capital, which alleged that Prairieland Park and Living Sky Sports and Entertainment conspired to cut Novatrek out of a deal to one day bring a Canadian Premier League team to the city. The allegations have not yet been tested in court.

Kemppainen noted that both Prairieland and Living Sky Sports and Entertainment had debated the stadium situation for a couple months before making yesterday’s announcement.

Despite the project officially being on hold, Kemppainen encouraged people to not lose hope entirely.

“I just ask people to remain optimistic, and that someday, when the times are right, maybe we can actually make it happen,” he said.