Opening one new civic facility – and planning for a new one – will be priorities for the parks, culture and recreation department in 2014.
Anvil Centre, which will open on Columbia Street later this year, will include convention facilities, a theatre, an art gallery, the city’s museum and archives, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame, multiuse rooms and more.
“Certainly our focus for the majority of this year is going to be getting the operational aspect of Anvil centre going. And obviously opening the doors and getting the programs going and having the facility available for residents to use and enjoy,” said Dean Gibson, the city’s director of parks, culture and recreation. “That’s our big focus.”
The centre’s general manager and conference, sales and marketing manager report to the chief administrative officer, while all staff dealing with aspects related to museums and arts programming and operations report to parks, culture and recreation.
“We are expecting that the construction will be complete in May/Junish,” Gibson said. “What we would envision happening is opening for full community access in September, and probably a quieter or a soft opening during the summer months, once we get ourselves moved in and staff trained to actually run the facility.”
When residents have a chance to visit the facility, Gibson is confident they’ll like what they see.
“I think they will find that nice, welcoming atmosphere that exists in many of our community facilities. We have been working really hard in these early planning stages to ensure that we don’t lose that connection to the community, as well,” he said. “I am really excited about being able to get this thing finished and the doors open, and have it start doing what it is going to do.”
The fate of Canada Games Pool remains to be seen, but planning will get underway in some form in 2014.
“Our emphasis will be – and this still requires some further direction from council – is advancing our planning for what’s next for Canada Games Pool,” Gibson said. “We are not at a point right now where there is going to be anything other than planning work that takes place.”
Gibson said staff hasn’t determined whether the work will be done in the first half or last half of 2014, as that will be discussed with council. While the pool is “top of mind” amongst council members, he said no decision has been made about whether to replace or renew the 40-year-old facility that’s located beside Centennial Community Centre.
“I think we might find an indication more than anything else in terms of what the appetite might be for an overall budget, which may determine the renew versus the replace option,” he said of this year’s discussions. “Regardless of whether we have that clarity in place, the things in terms of determining what we call the programming elements to be contained in a renewed or expanded or replacement facility would be, we can continue to do that work and see how that fits within the funding thresholds or funding tolerance levels as we get to it, because it is obviously a very significant financial impact on the city’s financial plan and we need to keep that in mind, in addition to the priorities and interests of the community, at the same time.”
Gibson said the question for council would be whether the city looks to create a new facility that provides opportunities to introduce new things that the city has been unable to do in the existing facility, or to deal with the facilities that already exist.
“That might temper the responses that the public give,” he said of public input. “If we don’t have that direction, we will probably work on the basis of what are your needs, priorities and interests – and then we will bring that into the mix and see how far the dollars will allow us to go.”
Aside from the two major undertakings, Gibson said his department has proposed a few capital projects in the works for 2014 that will be considered in the city’s budget process that’s now underway.
