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Now that New Brunswick's first casino has been announced for Moncton -- OK, a show of hands: how many of you are surprised? -- the inevitable debate has started.

Is it better located at Magnetic Hill or should the province have provided a much-needed boost to downtown by selecting the city core casino bid?

As much as the good folks at Downtown Moncton Inc. lobbied hard for the downtown bid, I think the majority of Metro Moncton residents are just fine with its location on the city's outskirts.

The vast majority of people I've talked to about this project said they didn't want the casino in our downtown.

The Halifax casino is downtown but it doesn't dominate the historic harbour city. It blends almost imperceptibly into the urban landscape. The same goes for other medium-sized cities across North America.

I feared a downtown Moncton casino would have dominated the core of our city. It would have consumed the bulk of available land between Main and Assumption Boulevard. It would have become the focal point of our downtown.

I think our city deserves better than that.

By placing Sonco Gaming's $90 million project at Magnetic Hill, it continues to build on the emerging "let's play node" in north Moncton. The Magic Mountain Water Park, the Zoo, the concert site, the Magnetic Hill Golf Course, the rapidly developing retail hub at Wheeler Park Power Centre . . . and now the province's only casino, another hotel, 1,500-seat theatre and 1,400-seat banquet hall.

Of course, the rumoured casino site on the southwest corner of the Trans-Canada Highway and Mountain Road won't sit well with the half-dozen fundamentalist churches that exist within a roll of the dice of the new project. I wonder if Sonco's planning team thought about that aspect of the site.

The fact the casino will go on our outskirts doesn't mean our city core will shrivel up and die.

It already has much going for it. The mix of restaurants and nightclubs is strong, another hotel is about to open and the province will announce a downtown location for a $47 million justice complex within a few weeks.

If the Magnetic Hill casino decision does anything for downtown, it brings clarity and focus to one thing -- the need for a downtown Metro Centre.

This is the project around which our downtown should rally. This is the saviour for downtown businesses which may be squeaking by each month.

Amid the glow of the World Hockey Championships this week, Halifax is already talking about building a new Metro Centre in its downtown. The 10,000-seat downtown Halifax Metro Centre is already deemed outdated after 30 years of service. Halifax is looking at a new 15,000-seat complex.

The time for Moncton to move on a 10,000 to 12,000-seat Metro Centre is now. The provincial government will not have to spend a penny on the $90-million casino. The federal government will not have to spend a penny on a convention centre -- the 1,500 theatre and 1,400-seat banquet hall give Moncton a ready-made convention centre -- even if it is at the Hill.

The city should lobby hard and fast for both levels of government to share funding of the downtown Metro Centre.

If planned properly, it can contain not only the ice surface and 12,000 seats, but additional meeting and convention space.

The rink would have corporate boxes that bring in big money -- something the city can only dream about at our 35-year-old Coliseum.

The Coliseum is a busy place year-round. It isn't just home to the Moncton Wildcats for 35 regular season home games each winter. The concerts, trade shows and recreational sporting events fill up the facility's calendar.

With a new downtown Metro Centre, those thousands of hockey fans, concert-goers and trade show delegates would spill out into our restaurants and pubs each night.

That's how you build your downtown.

The provincial government decision has done our city a favour.

We still get the casino, the property tax revenue, the 400 permanent jobs, but we don't have to put up with 800 VLTs and 20 gambling tables in the middle of our city.

The casino decision has saved the soul of our city for bigger and better things. Let's get moving together to build a better downtown.

I would wager the odds are still in our favour.

* City Views appears daily, written by various members of our staff. John Wishart is assistant managing editor of the Times & Transcript. His column appears every Saturday.