At its core, the purpose of a city is to provide, collectively, what each individual cannot. Early on in history we discovered that people can accomplish more together than they can alone. It's why people live together in cities, it's why we tend to seek out friendships and love interests and it's why government as a whole exists.

This root understanding of partnerships being better than going it alone provides a lot of justification for the P3 (public-private-partnership) project type - the Valley Line being a considerably good example. The P3 as a project can appear quite appealing - our former federal government certainly thought so, requiring a project to be a P3 in order to get federal infrastructure cash - but there's often an important criticism against P3 projects: one of the P's has a goal of making money, while the other P is in it, hopefully, for the public good.

This isn't to malign P3s. They can certainly be effective and they have their place in the array of project financing options the city should employ. But, moreso, I want to highlight what is usually regarded as the largest failing of P3's in order to shed light on a project opportunity that is really, really, good.

The South Campus Arena Project

A proposal was brought forward to committee today that described a project to build a twin ice facility connected to the Saville Community Sports Centre on the UofA South Campus. The arena, which would be owned and operated by the University of Alberta would come in at a cost of $65MM, of which the city is requested to contribute $20MM. For that capital contribution, which would be amortized over 20 years and, with interest, actually come out to about $1.3MM/year the City would receive 100% of the prime-time hours (6-10PM weekdays, all day weekends) on one sheet of ice and a quarter of the prime-time hours on the second sheet of ice.

The cost to build a single-sheet arena on land the City currently owns is roughly 20 million dollars, so with this project we'd be getting an extra quarter sheet for the price we'd normally pay - but we're getting so much more than a single sheet arena. This new sheet would be coming in a UofA-designed and constructed building, which for those who haven't been on campus in the past few years are some fine looking buildings, that are a pleasure to be in. They feel so much more than a single purpose-built location to just skate and play then go home. They feel like a place you can explore. That you can admire. That you can take pictures, apply filters to, then post on instagram.

Operationally, the project is a winner as well. The City of Edmonton would commit to buying 1834 prime-time ice hours from the University, at the Council-approved adult rate, which we would then turn around and sell back to the public at the same rate, cost-recovery.

You'll notice the half-rate for minors, this is something the City currently provides at existing ice rinks. Since the city would be purchasing the hours from the UofA at full-price, there would be a necessary subsidization occurring here: but this subsidization cost is comparable with the current net operating cost of an existing single-pad arena, so just like the capital investment, it's a bit of a wash.

For the same investment as a city-owned, single pad arena, we get 1.25 arenas in a pristine, centrally-located facility directly on the LRT line

For the time being, we've only (perhaps selfishly) looked at one side of the partnership. The nature of such a partnership is that the other side benefits as well, but here's where I believe this arrangement becomes much better than the typical P3 agreement: the UofA's benefits are Edmonton's benefits.

Think about it for a moment: UofA students are Edmontonians. Even if they're international students, they come live here. They explore our city. They go to Golden Bears hockey games. And campus isn't some private-property corporate warehouse. In fall, North Campus can be one of the more beautiful places to walk through and explore, just an LRT ride away. When people visit Edmonton they're encouraged to visit campuses as something distinctly Edmonton.

When either side of this partnership benefits, we all benefit.

I'm glad that we're revitalizing downtown. The Edmonton Tower will surely be a beautiful space, that will improve efficiency and service levels. But just as the arena was, conversations around that tower are mired with cynical comments about Katz's influence in the city.

This project has none of that. This is our premier educational institution offering us a sweet deal, on an excellent product that will simply make Edmonton better. These kinds of partnerships are the kind that the city needs to strike to deliver higher quality service at the lowest cost.