The ice at the Chatham Memorial Arena. Photo taken August 17, 2014. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)The ice at the Chatham Memorial Arena. Photo taken August 17, 2014. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Chatham

No arena money for CK

A new twin pad arena in Chatham-Kent is unlikely to materialize now that upper levels of government have decided to pass on the municipality's application for funding.

The municipality's manager of infrastructure and engineering, Thomas Kelly, confirmed the provincial government's decision to Blackburn News Monday afternoon.

"We are following up with government officials on the details of the decision which was forwarded to us [Monday] morning," said Kelly.

In late 2019, the municipality submitted an application to upper levels of government requesting $36.65 million through the Community, Culture and Recreation Funding stream to go towards a 2,200 seat, $60 million arena.

In order to secure the money, the application first had to be approved by the province, which would then pass it along to the federal government for approval. The project was only to move forward if government funding was secured, as per council’s request.

According to Kelly, the municipality received the following explanation thus far from the provincial government:

"Following an evidence-based provincial review process, your project, Twin Pad Arena and Event Centre and Multi-sport Community Centre, was not nominated for federal review and approval. The intake of this funding stream was highly competitive and total demand reached upwards of $10 billion against total available joint funding of nearly $1 billion.

Projects that were nominated to the federal government for review and approval were those that most closely aligned with the provincial assessment criteria and federal requirements. The provincial assessment criteria included reviewing projects based on community need, community support, lack of similar services accessible nearby, operational/financial capacity, value for money, asset management planning, whether projects were open to the public and efficiencies through joint projects."

Kelly said he believed that Chatham-Kent put forward a very strong application that "addressed all the criteria referenced by the government."

According to Kelly, the municipality has requested a debrief with the provincial government about its decision. Kelly said more details should be known after the municipality’s meeting with government officials.

In December 2019, council approved a motion to set aside $18.5 million from several existing municipal reserves to go towards the arena project, should it come to fruition.

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