The ball-diamond south of Eagle Butte High School in Dunmore is the proposed site for a 40,000 square-foot arena and "community fitness centre" being developed by the Prairie Rose School Division.--NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT
Medicine Hat News
Cypress County officials are contemplating an early stage plan to partner with the Prairie Rose School Division to build a $10.4-million arena and community centre in Dunmore, but say a larger partnership to jointly offer facilities throughout the vast county could be a result.
“I think it’s larger than just Dunmore,” said finance commissioner John Belanger during discussion of the proposal by PRSD at Tuesday’s council meeting. “(The issue could be) looking at county and school districts working together.”
School administrators are heavily promoting the community aspects of the project that would support the new hockey academy and which would require a $5-million investment by the county.
Space in the arena could be available for public use — anything from young mothers clubs, fundraisers, book clubs, youth or service club meetings — said district superintendent Roger Clarke.
A larger agreement for public use of school facilities could focus on Schuler, where the community hall was recently condemned and PRSD opened a new school with a gymnasium in the last school year.
“We’ve been in those discussions,” said Clarke. “We’re interested in making sure the buildings are a success for the community.”
A joint-use facility agreement has been in place in Medicine Hat between the city and school districts since the early 1980s.
Administrators say allowing access to school fields and gyms lets local government offer recreation space to residents without the need to build or maintain it.
On the other side, schools earn some income from the rentals on space that would otherwise be unused after school hours.
The proposal for Dunmore is to build an arena on a sports field north of Eagle Butte High School that would also include instructional space that could be made available for community groups at night.
PRSD also has school buildings in Jenner, Seven Persons, Irvine and Ralston — locations where the Cypress County supports community associations that have halls, curling clubs and other facilities.
Another four Prairie Rose schools are in the County of Forty Mile, and several are in the Oyen area or Acadia Valley.
County councillors said the Dunmore proposal as well as any larger facility agreement requires study and public input.
As well questions about how an arena would affect the operations and rentals at the Irvine Agplex.
“We’ll come back and ask administrators figure out how it can work,” Reeve Richard Oster said.
“We have other hamlets that we have to look at. There’s Schuler … and Irvine is a very important hamlet for us, and we want to do everything we can to keep (the arena) viable.”
School officials say even with a Dunmore rink, they would keep using the Irvine Arena, operated by the Irvine Ag Society, for hockey academy students there to avoid bussing times for junior high students.
Likewise, academy students at Parkside Junior High School in Redcliff use the Rec-Tangle in the town. In future years, both schools send graduates to Eagle Butte, where they would be bused back to either Irvine or Redcliff for instruction.
