Lakeland College’s Alan Rogan, Mayor Gerald Aalbers, LMHA general manager, Dean Stark, and Nigel Dube, head coach and general manager of the Lloydminster Bobcats, were over the moon at Monday’s engagement campaign launch for the Border City’s new event centre. Taylor Weaver Meridian Source
With the prospect of a new event centre in the Border City, staff at city hall are buzzing, but they’re also reaching out to the community to hear what residents and potential future centre users have to say about the roughly $50.5 million project.
On Monday, the City hosted media (and viewers of the event live stream) for the launch of its newest engagement campaign for the facility.
The event centre will temporarily be known as Lloydminster Place.
Over the last number of years, previous and current council has asked city administration to provide building inspection reports on a number of facilities in the Border City.
Those reports let council know the condition of the buildings and what work had to be done to keep the buildings safe and up to code. One of the buildings identified in the report was the Centennial Civic Centre, which council is now pleased to say is in the next stage of being replaced.
A special meeting of council was held in mid-January to finalize the site selection process for the new event centre. This meeting was also pivotal in the provincial and federal grant application process, which could not be completed without a selected site.
During Monday’s presentation, following an address from Mayor Gerald Aalbers, Alan Rogan director, recreation and athletics at Lakeland College, Nigel Dube, head coach and general manager of the Lloydminster Junior A Bobcats, and Dean Stark, general manager of the Lloydminster Minor Hockey Association, spoke to their excitement over the new project, and can’t wait to hear what the public has to say.
“It’s very exciting to announce Lloydminster Place,” said Aalbers. “There’s been a lot of discussion since this has come out in council and people have been talking about it on the street. This is really the formal kickoff to the launch, so there’s going to be a lot of engagement with people because we’ve been talking about fundraising, sponsorship and government grants, now we want to talk to the public.”
Aalbers explained the City wants to hear from everyone. The good, the possibly bad, and the potentially ugly. Any feedback is appreciated and will be considered in decisions moving forward.
“I know there will be questions,” he said. “(Such as) how are we going to deal with handicap accessibility? How are we going to deal with the multiple-use of the facility? What are the uses? Those will all be great questions and we’ll certainly field them and have some answers for some of those people right off the bat.”
Not only should the general public be excited about the new event centre, but so should the local user groups, including the Lloydminster Junior A Bobcats.
“For our organization, it’s huge,” said Dube. “You look around our league in the Alberta Junior Hockey League and there’s many new arenas, and now we’ll be able to have that conversation too. When we’re recruiting players, a big part kids look at is ‘where are you playing and what’s the facility like,’ and this is a step in the right direction for our organization.”
Dean Stark was also thrilled to speak on behalf of Lloydminster Minor Hockey and touched on the impacts a new event centre will have on the community as well as the organization.
“I started with LMHA just two months before COVID-19 shut down hockey across Canada and if I’ve learned anything through the challenging times we faced through the pandemic, it’s just reenforced to me how important sports are, and recreation for all of us, especially our youth,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem that long ago that Lloydminster residents were talking about and planning for a multi-plex facility in Lloydminster, the multi-use recreation facility we all know now as the Servus Sports Centre. Today, some 16 years later, we’re talking about the plans for an exciting new event centre for Lloydminster. We’re very lucky to have such nice facilities, and now we’re going to be at the cutting edge of facilities in our area.”
With the project still very much in its infancy, Leo Pare, director of communications with the City, closed out Monday’s campaign announcement with some final words.
“We thought it was important to put a brand or visual identity to the project to support us in getting some of our materials out there so it will support some of our sponsorship and community support campaigns in the future,” he said.
“This is project is real, and it’s happening. The brand itself is subject to change. There’s all sort of moving pieces to this project, so I encourage everyone to keep that in mind when looking at the materials.”
To have your voice heard and to give feedback on Lloydminster Place, visit yourvoicelloyd.ca.
