Local sports organizations are increasingly optimistic that the city hasn’t iced plans to build a new arena in Queen’s Park.
Local sports organizations say the demand for ice time exceeds what’s currently available at Moody Park Arena and Queen’s Park Arena and believe a third sheet of ice is needed sooner rather than later. More than 500 people have signed an online petition calling on city council to put the issue of a new arena on the ballot in October’s civic election.
New West resident Daniel Fontaine, who helped spearhead the online petition, is pleased that Coun. Jaimie McEvoy will ask council to refer the issue to staff at the March 12 meeting. At that same meeting, local youth involved in lacrosse, ringette and hockey will be appearing as delegations.
“Up until we started the petition, the whole concept of the arena was well beyond a 10-year time frame in terms of the scope of it getting prioritized. Although it was there, it wasn’t in the priority list. To have council take Coun. McEvoy’s motion and approve it and ask staff to begin that process, it does give priority to that project. It will actually put it earlier in the queue,” Fontaine said. “It doesn’t mean shovels are going to be in the ground tomorrow, but it means it gets that process started.”
Fontaine’s hope is a staff report would help accelerate the timeline for construction of a new ice sheet next to Queen’s Park Arena.
“Canada Games Pool is very a complex project, it is very expensive. It has got a lot of moving parts. This arena is fairly simple. It is attached to Queen’s Park,” he said. “They have identified the northern parking lot as the space they’d like to put it. I think we can do it in a lot less than 10 years – that is my hope.”
McEvoy, who chairs the city’s parks and recreation committee, said he intends to ask council refer the issue to staff, but he hasn’t yet determined the wording of his motion. He said there is a provision in the Queen’s Park master plan to construct a new ice sheet next to the arena, but given the other projects being planned it’s going to “take a while” before any work is done on a new arena.
“The bottom line is the city has the aging infrastructure and a large capital plan, and it’s going to take a while to even look at anything else. In the meantime, there will come a point where there will be a look at it and the due diligence would be: How much is it needed? How would it cost? All of those things. We are a long ways from that,” he said. “A motion to refer wouldn’t come with any timeline or instructions. Given that it’s vaguely there in future city plans and given that people are campaigning for it, I think it’s reasonable to at least say, let’s look at it and see if there is basic information available about this.”
Given the city’s current workload, McEvoy suspects it would be “quite a while” before staff is able to have a good look at the arena issue. With a growing population, he said it’s definitely something the city needs to consider in the future.
“I don’t want to encourage people to break out the champagne, but it’s also important that the city doesn’t just say no,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to have some kind of low-level or small response at least.”
