Is there still hope?

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Sounds promisingly like "imminent". When does autumn officially end?

The news is: there is no news.

In other news: the Emperor. He has no clothes.

Between now and Christmas should be interesting.

I wonder what the next batch of excuses will be?

The bit that stood out for me was "when the tenants are all signed up". Which means currently that they are not. Which means their money is needed. Which adds weight to the concerns surrounding Brent's actual ability to finance anything himself.

So which tenants are not in place? The obvious one is the school. It has been suggested that the school will cough up a tasty £3m (I have no idea if this is accurate or not) in grants from the D of E which is a very big chunk of funding to find elsewhere.

I haven't actually seen any support anywhere for the school. Does anybody want it? Is it automatic that the grants to fund it will be forthcoming?

It's beginning to look as though the plan is in place but the money to fund it is not. In fact that is pretty much exactly what Brent himself has said. without actually saying so in those terms.

We might have been worrying about nothing all along.

The school is integral to the whole design Franny, it gives the whole ground a nice balanced feel, out of the mouth of Babe, the pig in the city.

I hope the school isn't open during matches. The naughty children would probably be chucking paper aeroplanes, little balls of paper & flicking ink out of the windows. That would certainly disturb the crowd's concentration.

'We need to get all the tenants in place' - not all done and dusted then!!

knecht wrote:

I hope the school isn't open during matches. The naughty children would probably be chucking paper aeroplanes, little balls of paper & flicking ink out of the windows. That would certainly disturb the crowd's concentration.

It will probably be open on match days for the big kids to verbally abuse and pour beer over dissidents to the regime.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I wonder what the next batch of excuses will be?

The bit that stood out for me was "when the tenants are all signed up". Which means currently that they are not. Which means their money is needed. Which adds weight to the concerns surrounding Brent's actual ability to finance anything himself.

So which tenants are not in place? The obvious one is the school. It has been suggested that the school will cough up a tasty £3m (I have no idea if this is accurate or not) in grants from the D of E which is a very big chunk of funding to find elsewhere.

I haven't actually seen any support anywhere for the school. Does anybody want it? Is it automatic that the grants to fund it will be forthcoming?

It's beginning to look as though the plan is in place but the money to fund it is not. In fact that is pretty much exactly what Brent himself has said. without actually saying so in those terms.

We might have been worrying about nothing all along.

SFD.

The £3M figure is realistic. Went through loads of the schools opening in 2013 & 2014 and googled to finf grants.
As long as you hit the magic 300 pupil mark grants seem to range from £2-4M.

Govt bag o'

Don't think this is the funding hole as he won't have decision to end of year at best.

More likely the black hole is the operator of the underground car park (see what I did there). They were discussing £10M deal with NCP but haven't seen this confirmed as done deal in Brentian Herald. Maybe NCP need more convincing than the £25K sweetener the Councillors fell for that anyoe will use the car park at back end of an access road with no details when there is a free (for how long) car park in walking distance.

BTW: Bet PCC will be pleased that Brent is saying he'd have liked Planning Approval in Spring when they have bent over for him now without major details being in place.

I don't think the school will be a sticking point even though the whole concept is amazingly ridiculous. My thoughts are that the University will be taking an interest in the school and also the so called 'hotel'.

All that 3m will go straight to Argo, after all how much can a few blackboards and chalk cost?

GOB wrote:

I don't think the school will be a sticking point even though the whole concept is amazingly ridiculous. My thoughts are that the University will be taking an interest in the school and also the so called 'hotel'.

## Plymouth College bag o' ## states it is College, Marjon and Akkeron collaboration and talks of £2.5M inward investment, which is presumably the rant they were after.

## This is Dem' ## report says they were hoping for Sept 2014 opening. Who will they blame for missing that target?

green_genie wrote:

GOB wrote:

I don't think the school will be a sticking point even though the whole concept is amazingly ridiculous. My thoughts are that the University will be taking an interest in the school and also the so called 'hotel'.

## Plymouth College bag o' ## states it is College, Marjon and Akkeron collaboration and talks of £2.5M inward investment, which is presumably the rant they were after.

## This is Dem' ## report says they were hoping for Sept 2014 opening. Who will they blame for missing that target?

Bingo! - Now you know why we have the University's Professor David Wheeler on the Board. Now we just need to rename the hotel for what it probably will be, student accommodation.

Which Autumn?

I still don't see how these "retail units" will be commercially viable. There aren't enough "retail units" to call the place a mall (or some other fancy name).

I would guess that (especially in the winter) that the place would be deserted during working hours and only a few would go there at the weekend.

The cinema and ice rink would probably do ok if the prices were not too high. The hotel? Maybe.

Apart from that, I don't see much happening.

What was the rent per year for each unit?

Moist_Von_Lipwig wrote:

I still don't see how these "retail units" will be commercially viable. There aren't enough "retail units" to call the place a mall (or some other fancy name).

I would guess that (especially in the winter) that the place would be deserted during working hours and only a few would go there at the weekend.

The cinema and ice rink would probably do ok if the prices were not too high. The hotel? Maybe.

Apart from that, I don't see much happening.

What was the rent per year for each unit?

Maybe there will be daily tours of the murals and the iconic addition to the ministand will be nool's lighthouse, with a helter skelter round the outside.Plenty of face painting and Aviva hats on offer............. oh and don't forget the Pasoti Mugs for Mugs ! Geddon..............

Look how far we've come !  

A student mall? nandos, maccy Ds, a Kebab shop, pound shop, lidl and a launderette,

Iggy wrote:

The school is integral to the whole design Franny, it gives the whole ground a nice balanced feel, out of the mouth of Babe, the pig in the city.

Yeah, 'cause there's nothing so feckin imbalanced as a corner of a football stadium.

I'm surprised this one is still frigging standing...

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Looks like they've removed one story from The Herald, pretty much the same story but with a different headline, which is the one Greenskin quoted.

This is the one I replied to this morning in the comments, with nothing libellous or derogatory posted yet it has been removed already  

Postey really isn't happy about having the piss taken out of him on Pasoti is he  

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Moist_Von_Lipwig wrote:

I still don't see how these "retail units" will be commercially viable. There aren't enough "retail units" to call the place a mall (or some other fancy name).

I would guess that (especially in the winter) that the place would be deserted during working hours and only a few would go there at the weekend.

The cinema and ice rink would probably do ok if the prices were not too high. The hotel? Maybe.

Apart from that, I don't see much happening.

What was the rent per year for each unit?

Had many an argument about the viability of the Ice Rink in it's present size, summed up in post below

Stuart_C wrote:

Done some research into the viability of an Ice Hockey franchise

With reference to the Cardiff Devils there is an interesting story which details the haves and have not nature of the Elite League as can be seen from last years league standings below with average attendances and capacities listed. The article below states that Cardiff have break even figure of 1,600 with budget being sixth highest in the league.

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Cardiff have been struggling whilst playing at temporary "Big Blue Tent" which has poor facilities but fully expect to kick on when they move into new 3,000 seat national Ice Arena, forming part of a truly impressive development.

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Elite League standings
Pos att capacity
1 Nottingham 5177 8000
2 Belfast 4392 7000
3 Sheffield 4445 13500
4 Coventry 2179 3000
5 Cardiff 1459 2500
6 Edinburgh 957 3800
7 Fife 1378 3280
8 Braehead 2189 4000
9 Dundee 953 2300
10 Hull 773 2000

There are numerous accounts of smaller Ice Hockey franchises having financial difficulties.

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Most worrying is the report that the Dundee Ice Arena itself is in financial difficulties and is reliant on £250K/annum subsidy from tax payer.
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It concerns me that the proposed HHP 1500 seat arena not being able to warrant the Ice Hockey franchise and professional Ice Galas or multi purpose flooring required for Raiders or Concerts will turn into a white elephant with seats seldom used and could end up relying on PCC subsidies.

Wouldn't it make sense to either downgrade it to few hundred seats suitable for local use and give more room around the buildings or go for it with 3500+ seat capacity Ice Rink likely to attract a Ice Hockey franchise bid which would give 5,000 plus concert venue and truly European standard home for the Raiders. The IMAX or Hotel would probably have to be relocated off development but I reckon Mr Brent's confidants on PCC could find a more fitting alternative location for him.

Looking at an update below on the Dundee situation shows it only has a turnover of ~£1M and profit of £10K despite having an Elite Ice Hockey League Franchise.
If JB is wanting an Ice rink Operator to fork out £xM to put into the £50M budget he may struggle.

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Why do a job properly when it is cheaper to be village ?

PCC will be responsible for the going nowhere fast clusterfuck that HHP will be. Dark, draughty and ultimately dead.

Does anyone know where a fast food company for example, could get a price on renting one of the units?

It would be the leaseholder or more like an agent, I presume Brent will be leaseholder? Try searching A1 A3 property to let, I wouldn't have thought that they would have them listed yet though.

Greenjock wrote:

Does anyone know where a fast food company for example, could get a price on renting one of the units?

From section 2.6 ## PCC lease link ## the £30K PA increase in ground rent PCC are expecting was set as 10% of the projected rental value from the four units in ministand roughly giving £75K PA each not taking into account the slight differences in size.

Potential total rental income of >£1M PA for all the units in HHP should help secure some funding unless JB is so cautious (or has such little capitol) that he wants to sell off first. What the market thinks the units are worth given the restrictions on use is another matter.

What the units won't have is much footfall, picking up the scraps from the IMAX will be the best of it, the ice rink I suppose will help but it is all well out the way, maybe when the first one goes bust we could buy it to use as a fans bar?