Northern Bruce Peninsula is refusing to defer the Lion’s Head Community Centre and Arena redevelopment project.
Council defeated a recommendation to defer and press pause on the multi-year project during a meeting on Feb. 12, and is instead requesting more information.
The recommendation to defer the project from CAO Peggy Van Mierlo-West was based on a number of factors, including the life expectancy of the building, the changing demographics and needs of the community, and the constrictions of the site for septic and drainage requirements to operate the facility.
A report from Van Mierlo-West says, “any attempts to overcome these limitations would entail substantial financial investments and potentially compromise the project’s success and functionality.”
This comes after council approved conducting a building assessment of the arena last week.
Coun. Laurie Golden says while she does not have any problem with deferring the project, she has issue with the reasons for the recommendation as the municipality has not actually done the assessment yet.
“I don’t know what that building’s life expectancy is because we haven’t done the work on that yet,” says Golden. “To say we are abandoning this site totally, when we haven’t even done the assessment of the life expectancy of the building.”
Mayor Milt McIver says one of the reasons why they are leaving the site has to do with the costs to redevelop the arena.
“There was estimates given, but there were no firm costs given. So I think that we were considering other sites,” says McIver. “I think that is important that we do an investigation of the arena itself before we do any work. Just based on the estimates that we got, it was very expensive.”
Deputy Mayor Rod Anderson suggested council request more details on costing figures.
The motion was supported by council and a report will come back in March.