COLUMN: Montreal Doesn't Need a New Tennis Stadium. It Needs a Reality Check

You all know that I love tennis. I train in Jarry Park. I compete there. For years, I lived barely a minute's walk from IGA Stadium. I know the facility. I know the neighbourhood. And I know what happens every summer when Tennis Canada arrives and effectively takes over a large portion of a public park in the name of a two-week tournament. Which is why the latest proposal to build an entirely new stadium in Jarry Park is one of the worst civic ideas Montreal has produced in decades.

Let's start with the obvious question. Who exactly is this for?

Tennis Canada says it needs a new stadium with a retractable roof because Montreal is falling behind the standards demanded by the ATP and WTA. The organization says it studied renovating the existing facility, building a new stadium in Jarry Park, and moving elsewhere. Relocation was dismissed. Building new apparently emerged as the preferred option.

The problem is that none of this addresses the reality experienced by the people who actually live around the park.

Every summer, the neighbourhood is disrupted for weeks before a ball is ever struck. Roads are closed. Access changes. Construction appears. Temporary facilities are erected. Parking disappears. Traffic becomes a nightmare. The tournament itself lasts a couple of weeks. The disruption surrounding it lasts much longer. Anyone who lives nearby understands this.

Now Tennis Canada wants to build a brand-new stadium on what many news reports are casually describing as a baseball field. That description is technically convenient but practically misleading.

The site being discussed is not some forgotten professional baseball facility waiting for redevelopment. It is a community softball field used by children and local families. In other words, the proposed solution to one disruption is to permanently eliminate a piece of public recreational space in order to create a larger commercial sports venue.

Here it is (proposed venue for the new stadium build circled):

That should concern anyone who cares about public parks. It should also concern anyone who has followed major construction projects in Montreal.

In 2019, Tennis Canada was lobbying governments to help fund a roof project estimated at roughly $70 million. Now we are talking about an entirely new stadium with a retractable roof, expanded capacity, additional courts, supporting infrastructure, and significant redevelopment of the surrounding site. No official cost estimate has been released. Perhaps there is a reason for that.

Anyone familiar with Montreal construction knows how these stories tend to end. Initial estimates become revised estimates. Revised estimates become updated estimates. Updated estimates become emergency funding requests. By the time the ribbon is cut, the public is often paying multiples of what was originally discussed.

If this project comes in below half a billion dollars when everything is counted, I will be pleasantly surprised. But the larger question is whether Montreal should be doing this at all. The uncomfortable truth is that Montreal no longer makes sense as the host of a Masters 1000 event.

That sounds harsh, but reality often is. For years, the National Bank Open in Montreal has struggled with facilities, scheduling issues, weather problems, practice-court shortages, and operational shortcomings that simply do not exist at many comparable events around the world.

At some point we have to stop pretending that every problem can be solved by building something bigger. Tennis Canada's response to years of criticism appears to be that Montreal needs hundreds of millions of dollars in new infrastructure.

My response is simpler. Maybe Montreal does not need a Masters 1000 event. Toronto already possesses the stronger infrastructure, the larger corporate base, and a more modern facility. Make Toronto the permanent home of Canada's premier tournament and continue investing there.

Montreal can still have world-class tennis. There is no shame in that. Host a WTA 250 event. Host an ATP 250 event. Create something that fits the scale of the facility, the neighbourhood, and the city. Maintain and improve the existing venue without attempting to transform Jarry Park into an arms-race participant in the increasingly extravagant world of professional sports infrastructure.

That approach would preserve professional tennis in Montreal. It would preserve the park. It would preserve neighbourhood quality of life. And it would preserve hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

What worries me most about this proposal is that the discussion has already been framed incorrectly. The debate is not whether Montreal needs a better tennis stadium. The debate is whether taxpayers should be asked to subsidize a massive construction project so Tennis Canada can satisfy the ever-changing demands of international sports organizations.

Those are not the same thing. A generation ago, the argument was that Montreal needed a roof. Today the argument is that Montreal needs an entirely new stadium.

A decade from now, what will the argument be? At some point, someone has to say enough. For me, that point is now.