Would A $563 Million Dollar Casino Leak At Its Grand Opening?

AllTheBoondoggle'sThatFit

FoolsGold(en)EraVille

Of course not.

But a $563 million dollar magic carpet atop the old marshmallow just might:

"During heavy rain on Monday, water seeped into (BC Place) stadium through the closed roof, but CEO David Podmore says that's to be expected because the sealing work is not yet complete.

"There are six of 36 seams still to seal, and when those are sealed it will be watertight. So it shouldn't be a surprise," said Podmore. High winds prevented workers from finishing the seals on Monday, he said.

The stadium reopens on Friday evening when the BC Lions play the Edmonton Eskimos. Singer Sarah McLachlan will perform O Canada at the opening. The stadium is also expected to get a new name for the reopening.....

Hmmmm....

Haven't we heard promises from the good Mr. Podmore and Co. about his magic carpet and the constantly escalating costs* associated with it before?

Perhaps it is time to take one of those short, bumpy trips in the Gazetteerious Time Machine....

All the way back to, say, April of 2010 so that we can dig up a most interesting time/moneyline that was originally posted by commenter 'A Dave' over at Harvey Oberfeld's place:

May, 2008: Province (of British Columbia) announces upgrade to BC Place, including seat replacement, renovations to washrooms and concessions, and the replacement of the Teflon covering with a new retractable roof – total cost estimated at $150 million.

November, 2008: Province Treasury Board approves PavCo’s $365 million business case for all renovations noted above, with an estimate given by PavCo’s David Podmore that it will cost $200 million for the retractable roof alone – the approved business case is over $200 million higher than the original estimate of only 8 months prior.

October 23, 2009: Province reapproves PavCo’s revised business plan at $365 million, but only a month later a fixed-price contract to replace the roof (none of the other work is included) with Poole Construction is signed for $468 million(*) – the roof work alone is suddenly $268 million more than Podmore’s $200 million estimate of only 11 months earlier.

Note: Nearly $100 million in renovations have been reported completed prior to the Olympics, including both a seismic upgrade of BC Place, and reinforcing the concrete ring around the lip of the stadium to ensure the weight of the new roof would be properly supported. These large structural upgrade costs would, therefore, NOT be included in the fixed $468 million work contract with PCL.

So.

If it turns out that it costs an extra 10 or 20 or even 50 million bucks to fix the leaks, for real, that's no big deal, right?

After all, it's not like we are throwing handicapped people out of group homes or anything crazy like that for lack of 'revenue'.....

.....Right?

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*Costs now being born entirely by we, the Downtown-Vancouver Casino-Industrial-Complex-Free paupers of British Columbia by the way.

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