What started as one city councillor's request two months ago to remove some trees in order to improve the view of the river in the future Millennium Park space downtown has led to council voting to hear options to completely change, and scale down, the park's design.
Millennium Park, which has been in development for nearly eight years, has had an approved design plan since 2018. The previously approved plan involved constructing a public pavilion and a four-season water and ice amenity for the green space between city hall and Lions Park.
In early March, despite council not approving any motions, Coun. Mike Killick successfully gathered the support of colleagues and administration in order to have a 'workshop' for council to suggest last minute changes to the park's design before administration issued a request for proposals for consultants to bid on completing some minor servicing and design work for the park.
As a result of the workshop in early April, which Mayor Cathy Heron said had went “off the rails,” Coun. Sheena Hughes put forward a motion that directed administration to bring back to council three design options to move forward with.
On May 2, Hughes' motion passed with Heron and Coun. Natalie Joly opposed.
The three options, which will be presented to council before next year's budget is finalized, will be categorized by low, medium, and high levels of development and cost, with the current concept plan being considered the high level option with a projected $15.8 million price tag.
The low level option would remove the planned pavilion and water and ice feature from the park's design and would mainly feature a "hard surface" that would function as an event or performance area.
The medium development option would still entail a pavilion, although the planned water and ice feature would be removed. This option would “focus on event needs and provision of amenities and needs that promote programmed and spontaneous gathering,” the report says.
The current phase of work — further design and some preliminary site servicing — will now be delayed by three to five months as a result of council's decision, Manda Wilde, the city's interim manager for recreation facility development and partnerships, told council during the May 2 meeting.
As well, Wilde said, additional funding may be needed to be added to complete the phase, although administration did not have an estimate for how much or when the additional funding could be requested. As of May 2, $337,100 has been approved for this phase of work.
During 2023 budget deliberations Coun. Shelley Biermanski had put forward a motion that delayed this phase of work until 2025, however the motion failed with only herself, Hughes, and Killick in favour.
According to the current project charter, further site servicing and landscaping are scheduled to be completed next year with a budget of $2.25 million, additional detailed design work is scheduled for 2027 with a $1.5 million budget, and final construction of the pavilion and water and ice feature is scheduled for 2029-2030 at a cost of about $11.6 million.
“All we're simply going to do is just have the designs available to us and have more options next year instead of just pursuing with what we have,” Hughes said during debate. “What we have right now is the approval at the highest cost option without having really explored any of the lower options.”
“This is the last park that we have in this area and personally I'm not comfortable with the design that they have,” Hughes said.
In opposition, Joly said delaying the project any further will only increase overall costs.
“Our staff completed comprehensive research and consultation to come up with their plan, and I am confident in what they've come up with,” Joly said.
“I understand that revisiting a project like this is going to take the time of our staff away from other projects that are important to us and those delays ... mean higher costs for the things we need to make this a reality.”
Prior to voting, Hughes said if council was to scale back the design of the park, the project could be completed sooner than is currently scheduled.
“It might enable us to be able to move forward faster because $15 million plus is going to be cost prohibitive moving it forward at anytime right now based on all the other demands that we have and our current debt issues,” she said.
