Rec-centre closures could rehash multi-plex plan

By COLLIN GALLANT on October 22, 2020.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Discussions to close city-run recreation centres could revive a longstanding but never publicly discussed plan to build a multi-plex in the Box Springs Business Park.

Several Medicine Hat city council members discussed the benefits of consolidating new modern facilities to replace aging arenas and recreation centres this week as a way to cut costs and meet challenges in an upcoming budget update.

Albert Stark, head of the ownership group at the Box Springs Park, said that is in line with what his group first proposed in 2012 and have more recently been lobbying for.

“We believe a (multi-plex) make sense, and it makes a lot of sense at Box Springs,” he said, citing city council’s goals of boosting sports tourism and development.

A four-rink facility near hotels and the city-run large spectator arena Co-op Place (formerly the Canalta Centre), could bring in a spate of new events, said Stark.

“We’ve been working on it, and for the last year more aggressively, but it’s at the conceptual stage right now.”

Stark also said a larger plan for what’s long been billed an “events district” in the park near the large rink, could be outlined for the public this winter.

City officials didn’t specifically discuss the BSBP proposal at Monday night’s council meeting, where Mayor Ted Clugston talked at length about the need to re-examine aging recreation facilities in terms of costs.

The Moose Recreation Centre on the Southeast Hill, he said, is in need of $1.2-million replacement of the ice slab – upgrades that have been paused since 2018.

Another community rink of the same vintage, the Hockey Hounds Arena in Crescent Heights, is due for a $1.5-million “modernization” in 2024, according to the long-term capital projects list.

“The Moose requires a fair bit of work for the ice slab, so we’ll see,” said Clugston, who also talked about changes to the Municipal Development Plan, passed this fall, that call for more centralized, rather than community facilities.

“At first people may say ‘no way’… but in a city the size of Medicine Hat … people will drive to facilities and there are efficiencies … that far outweigh having a facility in every neighbourhood.”

A potential multi-plex was first discussed in 2012 when councillors approved removing a second ice surface from the Family Leisure Centre expansion, partly due to budget constraints on the $36-million project, but also due to a vaguely described private sector multi-plex proposal.

A study five years ago of ice availability in the Hat stated older rinks are less efficient in terms of collecting revenue to cover operational costs, but the city’s two oldest rinks also cost less in actual dollars spent.

This week, most council members said belt tightening is needed ahead of budgeting, while the News also revealed that administrators are evaluating plans to reverse a 4 per cent tax hike.

As well this month, the city, Redcliff and Cypress County also signed a regional intercollaboration framework that has co-ordinating recreation spending as a top priority.

“We’re looking at every single area of our operations and evaluating what the future will look like,” said Coun. Julie Friesen, who sat on the collaboration committee and chairs the city’s public services committee that includes recreation. “We have some aging facilities that sooner rather than later we’ll have to have major money put into them.

“We’re also working with Cypress County and Redcliff about (collaborating more), and recreation is on the table there, too.”

Last year, Cypress County evaluated a partnership with the Prairie Rose School Division about building a new rink in Dunmore before pausing the project. A new recreation master plan is before county council this month, and a new “Intermunicipal Collaboration Committee” of the three municipalities was just struck to discuss potential co-ordination and cost-sharing of joint-benefit projects.

“Is this something where there is something we can work together on?” Friesen said, speaking generally. “Maybe, maybe not. If it doesn’t work, then we won’t do it.”

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