File photo.File photo.
Chatham

Municipality Approves $2M Wallaceburg Arena Renovation Project

An ageing Wallaceburg arena will be getting some major upgrades within the next year.

Chatham-Kent council voted 16-0 on Monday night to approve the $2-million Wallaceburg Arena renovation project.

Councillor Carmen McGregor says she is excited the project is finally moving forward.

"We have discussed arenas a lot at council and we realize that we have to get started. That project was identified previously," says McGregor. "I'm very happy that it passed and passed unanimously with council. I think it's really great for Wallaceburg. We need some upgrades to the arena and it will be very good for our community."

According to McGregor, the project is being funded from the Arena Lifecycle Budget so it will not need to go through the budget process. She says the funding has already been previously identified for this project.

According to the motion report, the Wallaceburg Arena building design concepts prepared by ROAstudio Inc. were approved by council on November 3, 207.

These design concepts included:

  • Expanding the front lobby area and building new fully accessible male/female washrooms, as well as a family change room.
  • Installing a new elevator
  • Reconfiguring the dressing rooms on the west side, keeping the one furthest south and removing the other two to be replaced by a canteen area.
  • Building three new dressing rooms on the west side of the building
  • Developing an ice-level viewing area for spectators with limited mobility to support a full view of the rink
McGregor says the renovations should begin soon.

"As soon as the ice comes out, they'll be going full steam to get some of these jobs done. I think some of the finishing final up-touches might be 2019 based on the report," says McGregor. "That would be only because of the timing of the ice and the amount of time it takes to complete the projects."

The report states that the actual construction period should run from July 1, 2018 to April 1, 2019.

McGregor says she has been pushing for these renovations for a while.

"I started working on this back with the 150 grant and trying to get a motion -- well I did, we did the motion to apply for that and it fell through, which was very disappointing... a year later, here we are. Now we're going to move ahead so this is very good for all of us in Chatham-Kent," she says.

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