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City to prioritize indoor turf focus on permanent facility

Council directs administration to develop potential project plan, possible sources of financing for permanent indoor turf facility by beginning of June.
Mayor Bill Mauro
Thunder Bay mayor Bill Mauro speaks during the Thunder Bay city council meeting on Monday, March 25, 2019. (Matt Vis, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY – The future path forward for an eventual year-round facility for field sports could be made clearer in the coming months.

Faced with options for a short-term facility that would cost between $5.7 million and $8.9 million, Thunder Bay city council on Monday night instead unanimously directed administration to begin work on the planning of a permanent facility and to report back by the beginning of June.

Mayor Bill Mauro, who proposed the resolution, questioned whether the city could afford to foot the bill for one of the quick fixes, while then going ahead with a more expensive long-term project.

“This would be our direction to plan for a permanent, long-term facility but not closing the door on a near-term solution and perhaps trying to find some capacity to help the soccer community and other users of indoor facilities in the near term,” Mauro said.

The lack of availability for indoor turf following the November 2016 collapse of the privately operated Sports Dome has been a significant challenge for local sports groups and organizations. The Lakehead University Hangar and the repurposed bubble on Confederation College campus have the only two indoor artificial turf surfaces in the city, though the college site will no longer be useable.

The shortage of available playing time has led to leagues being disrupted or shut down, with youth soccer programs resorting to playing on gymnasium floors.

The previous term of city council had received a report commissioned by Soccer Northwest Ontario, with funding provided by the city, for a new multi-purpose centre in Chapples Park that was last estimated to cost nearly $30 million.

During this year’s budget process, council made two decisions to begin to line up funding for a new facility. A standalone indoor turf reserve fund was created, bolstered by $4 million transferred from the Renew Thunder Bay reserve fund. As well, the city’s share of revenue generated by the municipal accommodation tax in 2019 – expected to be around $1 million – was also committed to the fund.

Mauro expressed confidence in the city’s ability to put together a funding proposal. Mauro said he intends to propose to put the next three years of municipal accommodation tax dollars toward the project, along with a portion of the nearly $7 million the city will receive from Ottawa's one-time doubling of gas tax funding that was included in last week’s federal budget.

“That’s money for sure that we would already have,” Mauro said. “That’s without a tax increase. That’s without touching (another) reserve. That’s without levels of funding from the province or the feds. All to say we can do this.”

Administration prepared a report presenting five identified options for an interim facility, with an artificial turf playing surface covered by a dome.

Three of those options would be within Chapples Park, with price tags ranging from $7.7 million to $8.9 million but all three would not be likely ready until November 2020.

Another possibility would be to locate a facility on the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition grounds at the site of the former Sports Dome. While the option could be ready this fall, the field surface would be significantly smaller than the other choices and is estimated to cost $5.7 million.

The final option would be to have a dome installed at Fort William Stadium, the only possibility that would use a pre-existing field surface. The dome would have to be put up and taken down seasonally to accommodate other uses and is projected to cost $6.5 million.

Soccer Northwest Ontario president Michael Veneziale sees the decision to focus on the permanent solution as a small step forward, but expressed frustration that the process has relatively not advanced over the last couple of years.

“As we’ve seen in the past, there is no interim solution we can do in the immediate. Every time we come up with something, somebody comes out of the woodwork and shuts that plan down,” Veneziale said.

“If the city was to say to us that we were a year or two years away from that, that’s probably something we could swallow. But a four or five-year timeline, it just crushes. There’s nothing else we can get into.”

Kelly Robertson, the city's general manager of community services, said a permanent facility likely wouldn't be ready until 2022 at the earliest.

Veneziale said while men's and women's leagues have had to alternate taking a year off, there has been a massive impact particularly on the competitive youth programs.

“There used to be several rep teams in men’s league playing and developing. There were none this year. There’s no practice time so how can you have a competitive team with nowhere to play?” Veneziale said.

“It’s not only frustration for me. I play soccer. I can go to another sport. I’m talking more so about the younger kids, the younger adults that are looking to get scholarships and go away. We have a lot of that and you’re really messing up these children’s opportunities to get free schooling.”

Coun. Rebecca Johnson said the community needs to know that a new facility is not something that is going to happen overnight.

“I think we have to be very upfront with the community and say that this is not an easy fix and that we have to as a council really make a firm decision and we’re not ready to make that (Monday night),” Johnson said.



About the Author: Matt Vis

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