The decision to bring a new sporting stadium to Barrie’s downtown has many people curious and excited to see what it could mean for the city. Its location is at the corner of Dunlop Street West and Bradford Street - the grounds of the former Barrie Central Collegiate Institute. “I think what this does is it opens the door for more people going to a place for a purpose,” says Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall. And that place is the city’s downtown. While the Barrie MLS NEXT Pro soccer club will be the stadium’s main tenant, other sports and events will take place on the grounds. It will be a 3,500 seat facility. There’s no word yet on how, if at all, the facility will be used during the winter months. “I think it’s fantastic,” says Merika Agnew, a Barrie resident. “It will bring lots of tourism to Barrie and hopefully, clean up the downtown core too because we are going to want it to be nice for those people that are coming.” The new stadium will be operated by the Barrie stadium group. However, the city will own the site and the building. The $26-million construction cost will come from the City’s reserve that currently has almost $400 million. Nuttall says the City is taking the same financial approach as it did when the Paul Sadlon Arena was built. “We will receive the sponsorship dollars back from that, we will receive ticket revenue back from that, from Barrie FC and any event that occurs there, as well as the parking revenue that comes in. That should be somewhere around one to $1.5 million per year, until we are fully paid back that $26 million,” says Nuttall. “We are prepared and waiting for them. We can’t wait,” says Chris Gerrard, owner of the Queen’s Hotel on Dunlop Street. Gerrard says this is a great opportunity for the city and its people. “Anything that happens downtown drives business up almost 25 per cent. That’s all restaurants, bars, nightclubs. So it’s a direct impact to downtown; it’s an economic impact to downtown, if we bring people down here,” says Gerrard. Nuttall says we could see work crews on the grounds as early as this fall. The new stadium is expected to be ready by 2028.
