The City of Saskatoon says it needs more time before going public with possible locations of a downtown arena and entertainment district.

City officials say they’re still in the process of engaging with external consultants and negotiating with private land owners that may have a potential space for an arena and entertainment district in addition to the sites that the City already owns.

Dan Willems, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer with the City says their intent is to present council with the best possible array of potential sites sometime in 2020 once they’ve locked down the possible locations.

Willems adds they have been looking at what other cities have done with downtown arenas and entertainment districts including Edmonton with their Ice District which includes Rogers Place.

“It’s all very valuable information, uh, you know to take those lessons learned from other communities. No community builds these things, you know every year.”

The City won’t release where any of the potential locations may be, although some of the rumoured locations happen to be the Midtown Plaza parking lot across from Hudson’s Bay on 22nd Street, the City Yards located behind the police station on 25th Street and a parcel of land near the old farmers market next to the Sid Buckwold Bridge.

Today (mon), City Council will review a information report stating that the development of a downtown entertainment district is in the preliminary stages.