The future of West Ferris Arena is still murky this morning after city council decided to delay the start of a geotechnical assessment by a month. Councillor Daryl Vaillancourt brought forward an amendment to split the second of two recommendations on the staff report off, and move it to committee for the time being. Based on a structural analysis of the existing arena’s timber roof trusses, it’s been recommended that a new facility be in place by the fall of 2019, with at least one ice pad.
The two parts of the report discussed staff appearing before committee on September 5th to present background information, and the potential replacement options for West Ferris Arena with council, in the interim, authorizing staff to continue to investigate options to replace the arena. That included initiating preliminary geotechnical assessments, to a maximum of $60,000, of Memorial Gardens/Thomson Fields and Omischl Sports Complex or other viable sites, to determine the potential opportunity and challenges to constructing on those sites.
Councillor Mark King says they were planning to begin a geotechnical assessment this morning, but that will now be pushed back by a month. King says the process, brought forward via the amendment from Councillor Vaillancourt, confused most of council. He says his intention now is to move this issue forward, because time is of the essence. King says there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. He says as the chair of community services, and that means people can be damn sure that the process will be open and transparent in every aspect.
There will be a plan put forward that council will approve, and King says their CFO will be engaged in the process the whole way. King also added he expects to have timely reports back to council to indicate where they’re going with this whole issue. He says he’s not comfortable with West Ferris, adding it bothered him all winter because he was worried about the impact snow storms would have on the roof. An earlier preliminary report in 2015 found the barrel section of the arena’s roof over the ice surface cannot sustain more than 150 millimetres of snow. King finished by saying there’s always concerns with a building that was built in 1967.
