While at least one North Bay arena project has had famous last words attached to it before, it seems the ongoing attempt to design and construct a twin-pad arena at the south end of town has found its own in "subject to change."
See related: Breaking the ice: Contractor to update new arena project
The phrase was employed early and often by the design team of engineers and architects jointly led by the City of North Bay and EllisDon, the design-builder. Given a $59.5-million budget by its client, EllisDon acknowledged its initial costing attempt came back at $65 million — subject to change. The contractor told North Bay City Council during a special committee meeting on Tuesday that it was working on finding efficiencies and savings and had already tipped the balance to "closer to 59.5 as opposed to 65." The next official budget check-in with the municipality will come near the end of September.
See also: City ready to go to market on new arena with $60M target
The design — a work in progress and also subject to change — kept the council's attention but the financials were the key. Mayor Peter Chirico, in his own folksy way, half-joked about how the council would love to see that number come down to $59.5 million.
The build is slated to get underway before the end of the year, according to CAO John Severino, who also shared that the municipality's $25.78M in federal GICB funding delivered by MP Anthony Rota had received an extension beyond a March 2026 deadline that will carry through to the project's tentative completion date of July 2026. All dates are subject to change, of course.
See: Ongoing arena saga is local top story of 2023 say readers
Due to the evolving nature and early stage of the project, it would be foolhardy to present many of the details as fact. Instead, a general overview of what was discussed during the meeting will be provided and the video recording of the two-hour meeting has been inserted below.
The design team gave a professional presentation with several members sharing the microphone to explain the slides that appeared on the overhead screens. The plan calls for a walking/running track to be constructed on the second floor of one of the two Hockey Canada-sized ice pads with a slow lane for walkers and a fast lane for runners. The team indicated there would be plenty of extra room for teams to warm up on the track. Spectators will be able to line the wall overlooking the ice pad and the team promised clear sightlines of the entire surface below.
The building itself will be closer to the playing fields than the discarded trident concept, which EllisDon says will be more efficient and saves money. The plan is for a rectangular build with the two pads, ample change rooms that will be accessible from the exterior by field users, and a community room with a divider that could hold exercise and yoga classes, dinners and other community needs.
Each pad will seat 250 on bench-style seating, plus another 100 on the track. Many accessible features are planned for both athletes and spectators. Trade shows will be welcome at the new centre, with a mock-up provided showing dozens of stations on one of the pads. The new design is only 1,000 square feet smaller than the sprawling previous design.
The zero-carbon component that is tied to the federal grant is a newer design feature for projects of such scale. The team is confident it can satisfy all of the requirements. The stated goal is to reduce the energy load while maximizing the heat recovery. These concepts are a work in progress and subject to change. There was a brief discussion about installing solar panels on the roof of the arena but it was agreed cost would force any such amenity to come at a later date.
Sticking with the evening's theme, Jeffrey Malo, the design manager for EllisDon prefaced the presentation with, "This is an update, the project is still under development and is subject to change."
The project milestones are clearly laid out for the council. One part that raised the ire of Coun. Tanya Vrebosch was the lack of public consultation sessions on the project agenda. Vrebosch is concerned, as she was during the last design's preparations, about the accessibility features she has routinely advocated for but was assured accessibility is top of mind for the contractor. No more public sessions are presently planned but a place to leave feedback will be made available on the city website.
"We identified several key factors that influenced the overall project cost and had some budget constraints," Malo continued. "That gave us a path forward to identifying several areas, one being the site location of the building and where it was originally sited. We looked at programming — space efficiencies — we looked at the design of spaces, and the consolidation of spaces, to maintain the same program and reduce the overall building square footage, which also reduced the building's footprint."
Coun. Chris Mayne commented on how the presentation showed an "efficient, straightforward design."
"We are on schedule to provide the city with an updated budget report this month," Malo concluded. "We are continuously monitoring and tracking the design changes and their impact on the budget ... Our last step in this process in the design and development services agreement is the guaranteed maximum price, which will include all fees and all costs associated with construction."
That guaranteed price is scheduled to be delivered to the City of North Bay by Oct. 29, with council to vote on proceeding with the project during the Nov. 12 regular meeting.
Council is hoping for the $59.5 million minus the design fee of $2.6 million or $56.9 million for the construction cost. Trident construction cost was pegged at $71 million so it would be a $14.1 million savings plus operational energy savings year after year with the accumulated savings in the millions, noted Coun. Gary Gardiner.
" Subject to change until it doesn't. That's progressive design," he said.
