A downtown entertainment centre is a small step closer to reality this morning.
Moncton City Council has voted unanimously to apply to the Municipal Capital Borrowing Board for authority to borrow around $38 million.
City manager Jacques Dube explains, it doesn’t mean the city is actually committing to borrowing anymore money than first expected.
“We’re simply adjusting our capital plan to allow the federal government and provincial government to pay for things we would have paid for, normally, at 100 per cent, thus freeing up fiscal capacity. So we’re not borrowing anymore money than we anticipated across the corporation. We’re simply changing where the borrowing is going to be applied.”
Dube says sports infrastructure, occupied primarily by a major tenant called the Moncton Wildcats, is not eligible for federal funding, so in order for the city to fund the centre, they had to find a way for the federal government to participate..
Last month, the province committed $23.85 million to the project.
