Oilers Entertainment Group Vice Chair Bob Nicholson said that while Rogers Place "won't open until" Sept. '16, some pieces of the Edmonton Arena District "will be rolled out over the next 12-18 months," according to John MacKinnon of the EDMONTON JOURNAL. Nicholson: "This fall, over the next month to six weeks, you’re going to see partnerships and you’ll go ‘Wow,’ now I can see how that partnership is going to happen." Nicholson "sold his Calgary home last Friday" and will "move into a condo just west of downtown" with his wife, Lorna. He is "the consensus builder, a lifelong networker who puts building relationships high on his list of strengths." Nicholson said, "We want to have a stronger relationship with the University of Alberta. We want to have a stronger relationship with the Edmonton Eskimos. You’ve got to have strong local relationships, because that’s your base. But that quickly moves out to the entire province of Alberta, then throughout Canada and North America. If you have what we know we’re going to have, you try to attract people from everywhere to come and see this." He added, "Over the next 12-24 months we will see a number of key partnerships rolled out that we’re starting to cultivate." Nicholson said he foresees some restaurants within the arena district that "are going to be destinations" and others that will be "placeholders" that people visit before events (EDMONTON JOURNAL, 9/3).
