The city has delayed the release of its funding strategy for the downtown arena district for another two weeks.
In a report to city council on Wednesday, the city’s director of technical services Dan Willems says the city is actively negotiating a contract with a private partner who will operate the future arena and event centre, and ideally help raise funds to build it — they’re just not ready to go public yet.
“It is taking a bit longer than we had expected,” Willems told councillors on Wednesday morning.
Administration had previously committed to finalizing the funding strategy by June or July.
Willems says administrators hoped to have the basic terms of the deal struck by the July 31 council meeting so “the financial implications of the potential private partnership can be considered in the broader financial context of the project.”