Northern Bruce Peninsula reviewed the current state of the the Lion’s Head Arena as part of the redevelopment project.
Council heard from Facility Risk Solutions Bryn Jones during a meeting on Aug. 12, detailing a recent assessment of the arena’s condition.
This comes after council awarded the contract for the work back in May, following a design and costing option update in January which resulted in council pressing pause on the redevelopment project.
Jones says the assessment of the facility found some significant deterioration on the roof, recommending it be replaced. The oil furnace heating equipment, storage tanks, and emergency power generator were also found to be aged and should be upgraded and replaced.
“As we age over the years, going from year one all the way to year 10, we are aging from generally good to fair condition all the way into what we consider a poor condition,” says Jones.
Coun. Todd Dowd asked at what point should council consider replacing the facility rather than put a significant sum of money into multiple repairs and upgrades.
“Do we add $5 million to it to do a new dressing room, or should we just consider starting planning for a new facility, because we can put a lot of money into this one,” says Dowd. “But at what point do we stop putting money into this and start looking at a new one.”
CAO Peggy Van Mierlo-West suggested next steps in the redevelopment process.
“We do have a meeting with Infrastructure Ontario at the AMO conference coming up to discuss the funding and potentially the different scopes of work. I think that is one piece of the puzzle is to have that discussion,” says Van Mierlo-West.
She says the municipality will also undertake a cost benefit analysis for the redevelopment project, and later provide council options on how to proceed.
The multi-million dollar project has been in the works for a while, which sought to update the arena with new dressing rooms, a multi-purpose room, and creating a new Bruce County Library Branch.
Council pressed the breaks on the revamp earlier this year after a recommendation was brought to the table to approve spending $17 million.
