As Chatham-Kent works to finish a business plan to increase arena usage across the municipality, some residents believe building a new sports complex is the answer.
The topic of arenas brought up a lengthy discussion during Monday night's council meeting. Councillor Anthony Ceccacci brought forward a successful motion to ensure the business plan looks at the fees for using the arenas, the marketing of them and the concession stands inside them.
However, one group believes that building a state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex in Chatham would be the best bet for the community.
Nathan Trudell is one of the creators of Build The Complex CK, a group that is pushing for the building of a complex.
Trudell spoke in front of council Monday and urged them to consider backing the construction of a new sport and entertainment complex. Trudell said he believes many of the arenas in Chatham-Kent have run their course, especially Memorial Arena and Erickson Arena, and instead of continuously pumping money into upkeeping them, it would make more sense to replace them completely.
"Seventy-five years ago we made an investment in Memorial Arena and we got what we got out of it," he said. "Now it's time to make a new investment for the next 75 years."
The complex Trudell and his group have in mind would seat around 4,500 people and be located on the former Navistar Property. The group has suggested that the complex be built with the intention of hosting events and concerts, not just hockey games.
"Something like that in our community would go a long way to attracting new business and new families to our area. That's the key goal," said Trudell. "But, the biggest thing of all is maintaining what we have here already. If we have something like that here, nobody will spend their money elsewhere."
According to Trudell, there would be no impact on taxes due to the $2.2 billion of "Municipal Infrastructure Top-Up" funding recently announced in the 2019 federal budget, which aims to double the amount of money municipalities get through the gas tax transfer to give support for local priorities.
"We've actually spoken to members of the cabinet and they're well aware of what we want because our group has spoken up with the high authority officials. So they're aware that we're going to be going after this money," said Trudell. "We've already had some good feedback from them to know that if we can put together the right package for them to understand what we want and why we need it. I think it will all be there."
Trudell said he's received great response from the mayor and from councillors on the idea.
Although there's no concrete plan for a complex right now, residents will soon get the chance to give their feedback on the existing arenas.
According to Thomas Kelly, general manager of infrastructure and engineering services, the arena business plan is near completion and the next step will be going out into different communities to gather feedback from residents.