Year in Review: Arena collaboration will serve all municipalities

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Editor’s Note: This article originally ran Nov. 13, 2020 and the title has been trimmed and altered for space. 

Getting on the same page in regards to an arena complex will benefit all three municipalities in the Tri-Region.

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Year in Review: Arena collaboration will serve all municipalities Back to video

The discussion on additional ice in the Tri-Region has been on council’s radar in Spruce Grove for six years officially. In reality it has been a topic of conversation amongst residents and various councils for over a decade.

There have been no additional ice surfaces built in the region since the construction of the Tri-Leisure Centre in 2002. In 2009 an indoor recreational needs study by a third party contractor commissioned by the City of Spruce Grove revealed additional ice was the number one need of the community behind a community pool.

A similar study in 2017 closely mirrored the 2009 results, identifying pools, ice surfaces, adventure gyms/climbing walls and indoor field houses as primary needs. The same needs exist in Stony Plain and certainly in Parkland County where calls for additional ice have been equally as loud.

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The process of looking into the options currently on the table began in 2014 when the City decided to look at the feasibility of constructing a sport and event centre as an anchor project in an attempt to make the Westwind development a destination centre. In 2019 Sierra planning presented the first iteration of the options on the table today.

In a nutshell Option One was a basic twin pad arena, Option Two was an arena with 2500 seats with an additional community ice surface and the third was an all-inclusive arena and event centre complex. The estimated project costs of $63 million on the low end coupled with the current state of the economy led council to eliminating Option Three earlier this year. Option Two, like Option Three, presents the possibility of the ice being removed and other floor sports or activities taking place.

The City has begun public engagement on the two remaining options and expects council to make a decision on the project in the spring.

Results from the public engagement process revealed there is little interest in the City building the base twin pad arena Option One presents. A total of 13 per cent of respondents found the option very appealing, an additional 14 per cent gave it a four out of five on a scale from appealing to not appealing at all, 18 per cent gave it a three out of five, 18 per cent gave it a two and 32 per cent of respondents said the option was not appealing at all.

The base twin pad arena, while serving the need for additional ice in the community does not provide space for additional user groups to use and would not be a suitable home for the Spruce Grove Saints. Though they are not tied directly to the project it is no secret the Saints are looking for a new home. Coun. Wayne Rothe went as far as to say going with Option One would mean the end of the Saints in Spruce Grove.

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Option Two did not have residents raring to pull the trigger on a project either. Though cheaper than the full out event centre, estimated costs have crept up to $53 million. Ten to $20 million in savings is certainly nothing to scoff at but the fact remains council is in a similar squeeze to the one a $60 million event centre creates.

Just last week during corporate plan deliberations council debated the formula for tax increases at length with administration projecting shortfalls in the budget of $23 million over the next decade.

The region needs ice and the arena project will go forward but what it will look like when it is said and done is still entirely up in the air. The facility which makes the most sense for the City and meets the needs of the public outlined in the public engagement results is one which adds ice to the region, provides a home for the Spruce Grove Saints and serves other community user groups.

The only option checking off all of those boxes is Option Two.

In searching for a solution to this problem, I look to the Tri-Leisure Centre or the Heritage Park Pavilion in Stony Plain. These facilities had contributions from all three of the municipalities in the region and both are area staples.

Whether or not Parkland County and Stony Plain chip in on this project the fact of the matter will be people from both communities will come to utilize the arena. If done right it can be a draw for all recreationally-minded residents and organizations across Alberta.

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It can be another one of those facilities you just associate with the area, the kind of facility people will want to come to Spruce Grove for. Or it can fill the basic need for ice in the community without serving the greater needs at play. Where on that spectrum this project lands will largely depend on the level of regional co-operation the project gets.

Spruce Grove can and likely will do this alone. When it is all said and done it is going to fill a need which exists in all three of the Tri-Regional municipalities. The degree of need it fills will depend on the region’s willingness to go all in on a project over a decade in the making. A project residents desperately want to see become a reality.

jothomas@postmedia.com

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