Arena washroom renovations set for next year’s budget

Rehabilitating the washrooms would bring the numbers up to 15 for men and 13 for women which would be up to code if the washrooms in the mezzanine were also opened during an event.

Estimates given to the city show a cost of $34,000 to renovate the washrooms to a good condition. In the recommendation, city administration noted there are no funds in the current budget for the renovations and would be have to be funded through the city’s reserves.

Another option brought to the table was to have the work done in house which would reduce the cost to $10,000 or $15,000 for a rougher end product. It would also give council more funds to put toward a new dressing room or other improvements for the arena.

“The most expensive piece would be to take out the stall dividers and putting in new ones,” acting City Manager Jessica Walters said.

Ideas of turning the washrooms into changing rooms were discussed at a previous meeting however doing so would require an addition to the arena to house a new women’s washroom. The estimated cost for building the addition is over $52,000.

“When we looked into it we found that turning the washrooms into a dressing room was maybe not as good as an investment as fixing those washrooms,” Walters said. “You could say there’s some issues with the location of that dressing room anyway. It wasn’t really ideal with it being offset from the ice.”

Dressing Room Partnership

Councillor Glen Winkler said the hockey teams still require a new dressing room and asked council if they would entertain community involvement on funding it.

“If there were people willing to step up and build dressing rooms, could we put that in with the washroom [proposal],” Winkler said.

Councillor Conrad Read said it would have to be a separate proposal but would like to see all options.

“You could never turn down an opportunity for a partnership, so we’ll have to see,” Read said.

Councillor Curtis Paylor spoke about his experience working with the Stampeders building their dressing room. Paylor said they approached the city and offered to build an expansion to the ice resurfacer room at the back of the arena.

“We agreed to build that as part of the dressing room and the city would front their costs for materials for their expansion. We fronted the cost for our expansion and it was a partnership,” Paylor said.

“We had several people on the team that we’re contractors so it was done the right way and it came out as a really nice project. I think if one of the groups wrote a letter and said ‘We’ll improve the washrooms in lieu of the dressing room’ you’re always going to win on it if it’s done the right way.”

Council will make a decision on the scope of the renovations to the washroom and a possible new dressing room as part of the 2020 budget in October.

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nikita.ganovicheff@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @Nikitaganov

by Nikita Ganovicheff

Arena washroom renovations set for next year’s budget

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