A preliminary report from consulting engineers relating to a Condition Assessment of the City’s arena’s is warning that West Ferris arena will need to shut down if too much snow accumulates on the roof.
The consultants reported that the aging facility will need to be closed if more than 150 mm of snow accumulates on the round porting of the roof which is over top the ice surface.
The City has directed the engineering consulting firm to complete a load capacity analysis of the barrel roof of West Ferris Arena as soon as possible to better quantify the load bearing capacity of the barrel roof of the arena.
“The safety of our users and employees is paramount and the City is taking a proactive approach,” stated Councillor Mark King, who is the Chair of Community Services.
“Therefore in the case where 150 mm of snow does accumulate on the barrel roof programming at West Ferris Arena will be suspended until such time as the snow accumulation on the roof decreases to safe limits or is safely removed.”
City arena staff is unaware if the facility has ever had an accumulation of 150 mm of snow accumulate on the round section of the facility’s barrel roof nor does the engineering consulting firm know if the facility naturally sheds the snow so that there is nominal or insignificant accumulation of snow on the barrel roof.
John Severino, the Managing Director of Community Servicses says the arena department has established operating procedures that will be used to monitor the accumulation of snow on the roof throughout the winter months.
“We are exploring alternatives to determine if we can either reduce the potential accumulation or remove snow from the barrel roof so that we do not reach the identified snow accumulation limit that would suspend programming,” said Severino in a release.
Working with the engineering firm WSP Canada Inc., staff is developing short term rehabilitation plans to ensure the year round safe operation of the facility.
Vice Chair of Community Services Daryl Vailancourt commented that “utilizing previous work completed during the recent Multi-use Recreational Facilities study, development of longer term plans to ensure the availability of ice facilities for our community continues.”
The City’s long term Capital Budget Plan has allocated funds for capital reinvestment at West Ferris Arena in 2018.
“These funds could be considered to be moved forward should it be deemed necessary,” added Chair Mark King.
The potential operating restrictions with respect to West Ferris Arena will remain in effect until a more detailed analysis is completed.
