North Bay city council has a big decision to make on the replacement location for the West Ferris Arena, and the clock is ticking.
A staff report to be discussed by city council at its regular meeting tonight is recommending a new double ice pad community centre be constructed on city-owned land at the Omischl Sports Complex.
Staff is asking council to give approval to begin the Request for Proposal (RFP) process to select the architectural and engineering firms, to help with the design, tendering and inspection during construction.
The report also recommends that staff get approval from council, for the final design, before the tendering and construction phases of the project, along with making council aware of the estimated future financial impacts of operations of the new community centre.
Chair of council’s Community Services committee, Johanne Brousseau says her preference is the Omischl location and hopes the report will be accepted by council.
“We need to get going. Staff cannot move forward unless they have that recommendation, so they can go out to get architects to tender, and then we can put a price on the building. But the process needs to start,” said Brousseau.
Other alternatives considered by the Arena Committee, which met eight times between September 2017 and September 2018, were Memorial Gardens and the North Bay Mall site.
Brousseau says the committee did a “really good job of exploring every avenue.“
“The committee had recommended Omischl, and it had to come to council to be approved, but it never did. And I am going with that recommendation. I’ve looked at all the studies since 2012, and for me, it is the common sense approach,” said Brousseau.
“There was a lot of discussion. There is a lot of people out there who still want the other recommendation, Memorial Gardens. But then there were more players that came in with the North Bay Mall. But what we need and what we have, was addressed.”
Part of her decision was based on the amount of available space.
“We want 12 acres because we want to have a twin pad. We’d like to have the meeting room, walking track, parking space and also room for expansion. So it may end up that we have phase one as what we’re going to do now, and in five years, we’ll have a phase two for growth,” said Brousseau.
“The cost benefit is that the building will include football changerooms and all of what the public has been asking for from Omischl Field. It will compliment it. It will be part of the sports complex.”
Brousseau is anxious to see what the architects will come up with in their design plan.
“We will have a consultation with the public, consultation with the users, consultation with council, and then we move on to putting dollar figures next to that and then selecting contractors and going forward,” said Brousseau.
“At the time I thought it was 26 or 28 million, so now let’s say $30 million because it has been delayed because this could have been done a few years ago.”
Brousseau says what she likes about the location, is that Omischl would become a year-round facility.