SUNDRE — A building envelope study is underway investigating the structural integrity of the local arena to help determine future priorities.
“The intent behind it, is to give us an idea of the remaining life of the building,” said Chris Albert, the municipality’s director of corporate services.
“Certain things are starting to show their age — it’s a fairly old building,” said Albert on Aug. 5.
During last November’s budget discussions, the community services department brought forward a request to determine the arena’s condition and future longevity, he said.
“Council was a little bit concerned, about, I guess for lack of a better term — I think one of the councillors put it this way — is putting lipstick on a pig,” he said.
“Do we want to do a whole bunch of updates if the building isn’t necessarily sound anymore?”
Cautious about spending money on cosmetic maintenance items without knowing for sure whether the aging facility might be suffering from greater structural problems, council directed administration to instead reallocate a portion of the budgeted funding to conduct the building envelope study, he said.
Based on estimates from similar studies, $22,000 was set aside, although the final cost is expected to come in a little under that. Work on the study — including several inspections — has already started, and administration anticipates the final report will be submitted by the end of summer, he said.
“It’s looking at the structural integrity of the building, the mechanical, the electrical — kind of everything — just to see.”
The “all encompassing” report will provide critical information to create a proper list of potential maintenance priorities when developing future budgets, and will also determine “if the building’s viable, and how much longer it can last.”
Asked what could happen if the study discovers the arena’s structural integrity is compromised, Albert said, “That’s one of the things that we want to ask. Nobody really has that information.”
The objective is to find out whether the facility might endure for another, five to 10 years or longer, he said.
“Is it at the brink now? Once we get the answer to that question, that information goes to council and we can determine the priority.”
If the assessment indicates the building could last another decade with proper maintenance, then council could decide to immediately start setting funds aside so there’s enough to build a new arena in 10 years, he said.
“Council might decide, if it’s falling apart now, maybe we need a new arena now. And then we’d have to rework our entire budget and figure out how we make that work,” he said.
“It really depends on the information that we get out of this report, and what council decides.”
He added that based on laymen’s opinions to date, the arena appears to be “fairly sound. Our best guess is that, we don’t think there’ll be that completely bad news report that says the building should be, for lack of better term, condemned.”
But it's better to be safe than sorry, and he said, “It’s a timely and prudent thing we’re doing. Let’s just make sure that we don’t have a situation where the roof is collapsing.”
For example, looking at the past winter in places like Calgary and the surrounding area, the roofs of many arenas and sporsplexes caved or otherwise failed, he said.
“They hadn’t done studies on them for years,” he said.
So, it’s a matter of being proactive rather than reactive, he said.
“We’re hoping for good news, and we anticipate it won’t be overly bad — but it is an old building, so there will be some things that go along with it. There’s going to be some decisions that council has to make.”
New ice plant
Also included in the work being done at the arena is the installation of a new ice plant, a project that has been in the capital plan for a number of years at a budgeted cost of about $1 million. A refurbished model from 1953, the last unit was purchased in 1991 and has far exceeded its intended lifespan, he said.
“With the ice plant, it also involves rebuilding the building that houses it,” he said.
“Whenever you do any sort of renovation or anything like that, you have to come up to current code. So, there’s some deficiencies in the existing building that have to be sorted out first.”
That process has already started, and the work could potentially be completed towards the end of this month, he said.
Sportsplex remains distant dream
Asked whether plans for a sportsplex are on the docket, he said, “That’s a tough question. A multiplex is a very costly endeavour.”
Based on the research he’s conducted, Albert said such facilities are typically made possible courtesy of private funding from, for example, large corporations.
“With the economy, and with COVID, and with everything else, trying to get a large corporation to help fund a multiplex, I don’t know if that’s viable in the near future,” he said.
“But it’s always on the back burner, it’s always in the backs of people’s minds. A multiplex is really nice — it would be great to have one,” he said.
In the meantime, the tentative date for opening the arena for public use is the end of September, provided all goes well with the ice plant’s installation and the envelope study.
