City of Vancouver, Whitecaps enter exclusive negotiation period on new stadium at Hastings Park

The Vancouver Whitecaps and the city have signed a deal they hope will bring them closer to a new stadium in East Vancouver.

The City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Whitecaps have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the two sides enter an exclusive negotiation period on the possible construction of a new stadium at Hastings Park in East Vancouver.

The MOU calls for the city to retain ownership of the land and get a fair market value on a lease to the Major League Soccer club, Mayor Ken Sim said at a news conference with Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster Thursday morning.

The exclusive negotiation period will last through the end of 2026.

It comes just days after the announcement that there will be no more live horse racing at the historic Hastings Racecourse.

Asked about the timing during Thursday’s news conference, Sim called it a “coincidence,” and noted that horse racing has been declining in popularity across North America for decades.

‘We ask for a fair deal’

For Sim, securing a new stadium for the Whitecaps is a necessity and an existential question for the future of the club, particularly as the current ownership group looks to sell.

“Yes, there are interested parties who want to buy the Whitecaps,” the mayor said. “There are interested parties who want to take the Whitecaps out of the City of Vancouver … If there’s no opportunity to have your own stadium, where you have your concessions and the economics around it, there is no viable option for anyone who wants to keep the Whitecaps in the City of Vancouver.”

Sim’s comments echo those of MLS commissioner Don Garber, who has gone on record saying that the Whitecaps’ lease agreement with the provincial government, which owns B.C. Place through the Crown corporation PavCo, is “untenable” and a new stadium is needed.

The current lease expires this year, and the team and the province have been negotiating on a renewal for coming seasons, Schuster said Thursday.

“As optimistic as I am about this project, here, I’m optimistic that we’ll find a solution with the province and PavCo and B.C. Place for next year,” he said.

He declined to share further information about how negotiations have been going or how far apart the two sides are on a deal, saying only that further conversations have been scheduled.

“I’m very convinced that we have reasonable and good arguments on our side to get to a fair solution,” Schuster said. “We don’t ask for donations. We don’t ask for a sweet deal. We ask for a fair deal.”

Sim added that any new stadium will take time to build, and he believes securing a “fair” deal on the continued use of B.C. Place in the interim will be key to keeping the Whitecaps in the city.

PNE ‘entertainment district’

Whitecaps ownership announced earlier this year that they had been in discussions with the city about constructing a new, purpose-built stadium in East Vancouver.

Thursday’s announcement came with few details about the proposed stadium or its cost. Schuster declined to specify whether the team is targeting a 20,000-seat stadium or something larger, nor whether the Whitecaps would be the sole tenant, nor whether the team would be seeking funding from any level of government to support the construction of the facility.

“We don’t negotiate in the public,” he said. “We need to find a solution, and we will not limit ourselves.”

On cost, Sim did not promise any funding from the city, but he did tout the stadium plan — and keeping the Whitecaps more broadly — as a revenue-generating investment for the province, through the jobs and the entertainment spending it would create.

The North American Soccer League incarnation of the Whitecaps played their matches at the old Empire Stadium on the PNE grounds in the 1970s and early ’80s, before B.C. Place was completed in 1983.

The mayor said he views the potential redevelopment of Hastings Park to incorporate a soccer stadium as part of creating and expanding an “entertainment district” at the PNE.

The new stadium would join the under-construction amphitheatre and the PWHL’s Vancouver Goldeneyes at the Pacific Coliseum as anchors of such a district, which would be served by a future rapid transit line connected to the North Shore, Sim said.

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