The Kingsway Entertainment District (KED) is a planned new development in the northeast part of Sudbury. The KED is currently planning on housing the events centre, casino, and hotel conference centre. There is also talk of a motorsport facility and other amusement activities.
This is a Private-Public Partnership development. The events centre will be a new hockey/basketball arena that will be built, owned, operated and paid for by the city.
I have been following the news about this development since October 2020. The KED has critics nipping at its heals non-stop since city council narrowly voted to proceed with the venture back in 2017.
The arena
In spite of strong local opposition, the City of Greater Sudbury is going ahead with preparing the KED property and building of a new city-owned $100+ million hockey arena. The local OHL team will move out of the existing downtown arena and will become the arena’s major tenant. It will also be used to host concerts, conventions and large-scale special events.
The city will pay for the arena and for a good-sized portion of the required infrastructure, at least $6 million. The rest of the development will be privately built, owned and operated.
I would like to make a few comments about the KED.
(click on the underlined links to see the sources)
The hype
“We believe the development of the Kingsway Entertainment District will have a great impact in establishing a world-class entertainment facility here in Sudbury.”
Las Vegas, Orlando, Bali (Indonesia), New York City, Shanghai, Macao, Phuket (Thailand), Paris and London are world-class entertainment centres. Perhaps Canada’s three biggest cities could be included in that list but Sudbury will definitely not make the cut.
The hotel
The KED is expected to include a hotel conference centre. However, so far there are no details on who will build the hotel, what name it will use and what company will operate it.
A city councillor stated: “For years, we’ve talked about how the KED will feature a state-of-the-art arena, a Starlight casino and a 200+ room, five-star hotel.”
I can’t see a five-star hotel coming to Greater Sudbury. A five-star hotel is a Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La, or a St. Regis—these are hotels with bellmen, luxury multi-room suites, club floors, top-of-the-line restaurants and where staff provide personal service. Toronto’s only five-star hotel, up to fifteen years ago, was the Four-Seasons.
The standard room rates for Toronto’s five-star hotels run from $569 to $750 a night. That sounds a bit pricy for Sudbury.
Four-star hotels are your Fairmonts (the Royal York, Château Frontenac, etc.), and the high-end Marriotts, Hiltons, and Sheratons. They offer 24-hour room service, laundry, have a full-service sit-down restaurant and a bar; and a large convention area with a ballroom and multiple conference rooms. A city the size of Ottawa or Calgary would have three or four of these hotels, almost always located in the downtown core by the offices and universities.
A small four-star hotel may be viable, I’m no economist, but its convention area would then be competing for events against the next-door hockey arena and the proposed downtown Junction West convention and concert hall.
The casino
It is expected that Gateway Casinos will build a casino in the KED which will replace their existing Chelmsford location.
The gambling industry has changed since 2017. Ontario now has 71 casinos. (Some of these casinos, including the existing Gateway Casinos—Sudbury, just have slot machines.) Casinos now are almost as common as pot shops and nail salons.
People no longer have to travel to a casino in Ontario as they can enjoy instant gratification wherever they are by gambling online with OLG Live/Casino. The money people save by not paying for gas and hotels can be spent playing their favourite casino games at home.
I think a casino will be built but I am not sure when, or if it will be as large as first suggested.
Jobs
“It’s no secret that in Sudbury jobs are needed. This project will without a doubt create jobs in all industries. You will see hospitality jobs, construction jobs, trades jobs and many more spin off jobs when the workers start spending money.”
To say that the KED will create jobs in all industries is just small-town boosterism. There will definitely be a lot of construction jobs and the casino and hotel will employ people. However, construction jobs provide temporary employment and it is unknown how many new permanent full and part-time jobs Sudbury will gain from this. Due to layoffs and business closings, many workers may move to the KED from existing workplaces.
A casino will suck a lot of entertainment money out of local pockets so it’s hard to tell how many small local businesses will close.
More visitors
“The KED will attract more people to Greater Sudbury. With the amenities that are planned in the area we will see people coming into the city and staying longer.” “Greater Sudbury doesn’t really have an anchor tourism attraction that will bring people here and keep them here. With the KED we will most likely see that.”
This raises the question of where these increased number of visiters will be coming from? The municipality states:
“Greater Sudbury has a market area stretching from the Quebec border west to the eastern shore of Lake Superior and north to James and Hudson’s Bay coastlines. Some 550,000 people live in the area and many visitors already come to Greater Sudbury to shop, attend medical appointments or visit friends and family.”
I don’t think that Sudbury will get many new visitors from the east or west regions of Northeast Ontario as both Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay have their own casinos and OHL hockey teams.
Gateway Casinos Sault Ste. Marie
Gateway Casinos Sault Ste. Marie has existed since 1999. The new Cascades Casino in North Bay will open in 2022.
“The events centre will be an improved community space that offers unique experiences for residents. It will also attract visitors from outside of the city and around the world,” the city said.
As far as the GTA goes, the map below shows the areas that are within a four-hour drive from Toronto. This area contains five NHL hockey teams, three NBA basketball teams, six teams in the American Hockey League, almost all of the OHL hockey teams and numerous casinos. It contains provincial and state parks, ski hills, world-class museums and art galleries, amusement parks and high-end shopping malls, hotels and restaurants.
By the time the KED is built, the Porsche Experience Centre in Pickering will be up and running.
I suspect that it will be a hard sell to get people in the GTA to make the four-hour drive up to Sudbury to visit the Kingsway Entertainment District.
The downtown
Greater Sudbury’s existing Entertainment District is downtown. It’s difficult to tell how many of the downtown bars, coffee shops and restaurants will survive after the KED opens. How hard will the local motels and downtown hotels be hit? After all, people have just so many dollars to spend on dining and entertainment.
A new building, (Junction East), containing a new main library and art gallery is planned for the downtown. As far as I can tell, all the costs will be borne by the taxpayers.
I doubt that Junction East will attract enough people to offset the closing of the Sudbury Community Centre.
The city states: “Junction West will be the largest state-of-the-art meeting and performance space in northern Ontario. It will be a unique multi-purpose convention and live performance facility in downtown Sudbury and will act as an anchor for the growing arts and cultural scene in Greater Sudbury.”
We’ll see if Sudbury can support two new convention and live entertainment centres, one at the KED and another downtown.