Photo Credit: Shaun Penner

By Shaun Penner

Pool, arena demolition

City Council set to discuss demolition options for Leisure Centre

Aug 19, 2021 | 1:28 PM

Grande Prairie City Council will discuss how and whether to proceed with the demolition of the Leisure Centre and adjoining indoor soccer pitch at Monday’s meeting.

This comes after the Community Services Committee unanimously recommended that council approve the full demolition of the building, following a presentation from administration on Tuesday.

The Leisure Centre was home to an aquatics centre, first built in 1974, but was closed in 2011 as the Eastlink Centre opened its doors and as there were building concerns in that portion of the facility. The former Johnny Macdonald Arena, which is attached to the Leisure Centre, was converted to an indoor soccer pitch in 2012 and is now commonly referred to as Pitch 2.

Manager of Sports Development, Wellness and Culture Stephanie Cajolais says though the entire building is mostly past its prime.

“We’ve assessed the facility and its sort of at the end of its life cycle,” said Cajolais.

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However, she does note that any approval to demolish the entire building would have an impact on the local sports and recreation scene, as while the aquatics centre has been unused for the past decade, Pitch 2 has been regularly utilized by the community.

In 2019, 1,100 hours were booked at the facility by soccer, tennis, cricket and other community sport and recreation groups.

“It’s definitely a significant part of the consideration,” said Cajolais of whether to go ahead with full demolition.

“The facility is utilized quite a bit by community sport and recreation groups… it definitely will be a bit of a void in the community.”

Three options were presented for committee’s approval at Tuesday’s meeting, including recommending the demolition of just the aquatics centre while maintaining the soccer pitch, or keeping the entire building standing.

While administration did consider the partial demolition, a high-level estimate undertaken by the Corporate Facility Management Department in November 2018 suggested it would cost around $842,000 to construct the needed structural wall to make Pitch 2 a stand-alone facility.

A further in-depth structural review would also be required to consider that option.

“There would be some significant work required to keep the soccer pitch as a stand-alone facility,” said Cajolais.

She says if the facility is demolished, they will work with community recreation and sport groups on finding future solutions.

“Nothing is planned at this very moment, but we do recognize the importance of recreation and sport groups to the community,” said Cajolais. “We’ll certainly work with them to minimize the impacts to them with this facility closure and look to council on recommendations on what should take place at that site going forward.”

Earlier this year council did commit up to $100,000 in seed funding for the Swan City Football Club in 2021 for design fees for a proposed soccer building.

READ MORE: Swan City FC pitches for new indoor pitch to Grande Prairie City Council

The hope for city administration is that the facility can be demolished alongside the old Composite High School in late 2022.

To join the tender by Alberta Education for that, the city must first submit a detailed cost estimate identifying hazardous materials abatement, facility demolition, and potential construction of the required bearing wall between facilities if Pitch 2 were to be kept standing, by December of this year.