Motion to reconsider new Sudbury arena decision fails at city council

Motion to reconsider Sudbury downtown arena fails A motion brought forward by Coun. Bill Leduc to have city council reconsider its decision to build a new $200M arena downtown failed Tuesday

A motion presented Tuesday night to Sudbury city council to reconsider the arena build failed and plans to build the new $200 million facility will go ahead in the city's downtown core.

Two weeks ago, council unanimously voted in favour of building a new arena instead of renovating the current one.

The motion to reconsider was put forth by Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc, who had been a proponent of building the Kingsway Entertainment District (KED) in Minnow Lake.

"We were given a report back in 2022 from PricewaterhouseCoopers that clearly identified that the downtown was a bigger risk to put an arena when you compare the Minto-Shaughnessy block," Leduc said.

"It also came back favourable for the Kingsway to be less risk and show bigger economic development for the city."

The KED development was voted down in July 2022 after years of back and forth caused costs to soar to $215 million.

Leduc presented council with a petition of 750 signatures against the new downtown build.

He was the only one to vote in favour of the reconsideration.

Several people in attendance at Tuesday's meeting booed when the decision was made by council.

Mayor Paul Lefebvre told CTV News many of the signatures on the petition weren't even from Sudbury and said he still stands by council's decision to move ahead on the event centre.