Sources are telling BayToday that the North Bay Mall is now the preferred site for a new twin pad arena to replace the aging West Ferris Sam Jacks arena.
The project, if approved, would be a joint investment between local and outside business people.
The mall would be torn down, at least in part, and the new rink located at the site of the south wing and the former Mother's Pizza building which has been sitting idle for years.
The local YMCA is also said to be involved.
See: City looking to private sector for new arena land
And: Tough decisions on arena project coming soon
Meanwhile, the chair of the North Bay arena committee is predicting `good things happening in West Ferris` in the near future.
"One of the things that has been very, very important as far as I'm concerned, is the location of the new arena," said Mark King.
The property manager for the North Bay Mall confirms there are on-going discussions with an interested party over the possibility of building on mall property.
"There definitely is interest . I was contacted by a gentleman about a week or so ago, and I forwarded his information to my head office. I know that they're talking right now, so nothing has been confirmed about what's going to happen, but they are communicating," said Farrah Nadon
"I know when I spoke to someone, there is the thought of possibly taking part of the mall, possibly building in the parking lot, but I don't know if building in the parking lot would work, if there would be enough room. So there's a couple of options that they could take if it does go through. Personally I would like to hear something sooner rather than later, but I haven't received any e-mails or notification or documents at this point, so we'll have to see what happens."
Meantime, King says no decision has been made on a permanent location. The tender process for the private sector closed late Wednesday afternoon.
"I'm not in a position to comment one way or the other until we see exactly what's transpired from the tender process that the city has moved toward as far as the private sector is concerned. We'll just have to wait until all the information comes forward," said King.
"The arena committee will look at all of the proposals that's come forward to the city in due course. Really that whole tender process basically ended yesterday and of course, I haven't had a chance to look at any of this stuff. Staff will make the recommendations."
The final report to be presented to council is expected to be ready by late May.
"I've been told that we wanted to move along with this process as quickly as possible once we get an idea of what's out there," said King.
The committee has been given numerous extensions by city council to review the cost of replacing the West Ferris arena, possibly with a new double-pad building.
One location, formerly favoured by King, is the Steve Omischl Sports Field complex.
City council has given the arena committee until June 30th to come up with a final report. At the time the extension was awarded, King was quoted as saying,
"The 64-million-dollar question is, how do we pay for this? I know it's going to be in the $30 million range, if in fact, we go with the double pad, and whatever other bells and whistles are involved. How do you pay for that, will be the single biggest question for me."
Following Tuesday night's council meeting King was more optimistic.
"Stay tuned, there's some interesting things going to happen in the future," said King.
