A combined outdoor wedding and playground will be built in this area of the Lloydminster Ex, thanks to an $80,000 donation from the Co-op’s Community Spaces program. Lloydminster and District Co-op CEO, Peter Brown, presented the cheque to Lloyd Ex general manager Jackie Tomayer on Tuesday.Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Get married outdoors at the Lloydminster Exhibition Grounds and let your kids free range on a nearby playground.
Both activity amenities should be under construction in August thanks to $80,000 in funding from the Co-op Community Spaces program to create Co-op Celebration Park.
“We’ve been wanting to do this project for years now—develop a nice outdoor wedding facility and also having the playground addition is massive for this area,” said Lloydminster Exhibition Association general manager, Jackie Tomayer.
She accepted the cheque from Lloydminster and District Co-op CEO, Peter Brown, at the construction site between Nissan Place and the Stockade Convention Centre Tuesday morning for the project launch.
“We are so fortunate and so grateful that the Co-op Community Spaces chose us at the Lloydminster Exhibition,” said Tomayer.
Brown says the Community Spaces program is headed by a group across Western Canada that makes the selection for funding.
“We’re just excited that we got selected in our community,” he said.
Brown says the Lloyd Ex has a real need for a playground in this area.
“We’re really excited to see how the wedding piece comes together. So it’s going to beautify this area,” he said.
The park is touted as a multi-phase development that will include an outdoor gathering area with a three-tier pergola (with an option for an outdoor stage platform), children’s playground, fire pit, walking path, and other features.
Tomayer says the community needs these green spaces to come and have picnics and gatherings and family functions.
She says people can have a wedding outside and then use their facility to host a reception inside, among many benefits.
“I think people will be able to come and use our facilities and the kids can have a good time while the parents are partaking in whatever they’re doing, and just even for kids to come and play on the playground when there are no events going on will be big,” she said.
Tomayer says the next step is to pick a builder and break ground after the Lloyd Ex Fair is over “and we’ve shaken off those cobwebs,” as she put it.