A sixth arena ice surface in St. Albert will be built at Servus Place at an estimated cost of nearly $20 million, but the exact location is as yet unclear.
Councillors approved a motion at the Sept. 19 meeting to have the matter debated as part of this year’s budget deliberation process later this year. The action followed a detailed report to council about possible locations.
The motion calls for the arena to be located at Servus Place, but leaves it to council to decide which of two options the city will pursue.
Option A would see the new add-on located at the south end of the building, using up some of the existing parking-lot space for an estimated cost of $19.7 million. Option B would mean the removal of some existing leisure ice, using some of the building’s existing footprint and using less parking-lot space, for an estimated cost of $18 million.
Business manager Anna Royer reported to council the need for a new arena ice surface is apparent, with some user groups reporting having to go outside the community to get ice time if they can get it at all.
As for locations, administration looked at 24 different options including existing facilities and outdoor rinks, as well as some as-yet undeveloped land. Challenges exist with all those spaces.
“We’ve all come to the belief Servus Place makes the most sense,” interim city manager Chris Jardine said. “I think we need to do more analysis as to whether Option A or Option B makes the most sense.”
Both come with challenges. Expanding into the existing parking lot to the south would be somewhat more costly, while expanding partially within the building’s existing footprint would mean the loss of the leisure ice and could potentially affect proposed expansions of the fitness centre and aquatics centre.
Coun. Cathy Heron, who was the only councillor to vote against the motion to move forward with putting the new arena ice at Servus Place, said she was worried about clustering all the arenas into one part of the city.
“Planning rec services for a city of 60,000, you would assume the rec services would be spread out,” she said.
Coun. Sheena Hughes said she would support discussing this project come budget time, but wouldn’t necessarily want to see it move forward at that point.
“We’ve already said yes to a lot of projects, and meanwhile we’re in a recession,” she said. “If we continue down this line we’ll be looking at eight-per-cent (tax) increases in this year alone.”
“We can’t please everybody at once. We’re going to have to make some tough decisions,” Coun. Bob Russell said, adding he did like the idea of building it as an add-on to Servus Place to take advantage of synergies.
