As the Cenovus Energy Hub opening day draws closer, information around the lease rates for user groups has been revealed.
Read more: Understanding the Cenovus Energy Hub
Currently, to rent the Centennial Civic Centre, groups aren’t paying. In the new arena, however, they will be. For their upcoming season, the Lloydminster Bobcats will be paying $1,703.07 for their contract.
The Lloydminster Junior B Bandits will only be paying during their season at a monthly rate of $478.04.
Coun. David Lopez asked why the Jr. B. bandits were only paying during the season despite all the other teams paying year-round.
Joel Turcotte, director of recreation and cultural services for the City of Lloydminster, said they provided all the options during negotiations.
“This negotiation, it took awhile for us to get here,” he said. “Our teams currently don’t pay anything for rental for their dressing rooms. One of the things we offered was if they could only rent during the hockey season.”
The Lakeland College Rustlers women’s hockey team will also be playing out of the new arena, paying $364.38 for their year.
The Lloydminster Minor Hockey Association will also be playing out of the new facility with a monthly rent of $1,346.28. These monthly rates are calculated by a rate per sq ft. The rate starts at $5.50 per sq ft, climbing to $6.50 next year and then $7.50 the following three years.
Each agreement features different benefits to the teams and include a dressing room. The city, however, reserves the right to use the rooms if they are hosting an event.
“In all the lease agreements, the city does reserve the right to utilize those dressing rooms, even during the hockey season, for special events with appropriate notice,” said Tracy Simpson, executive manager of community development services.
Coun. Michael Diachuk asked if the city had calculated its revenue from the hub.
“There’s a rental rate plus the amount they pay for the ice when they have a game,” he said. “So, there’s all those layers of income. What I’m looking at is building a budget around Cenovus Energy Hub, have you taken those steps as to calculate what you’re going to see as revenues.”
“We’ve created a budget based on the amount of rental rates, based on youth summer ice we project,” responded Turcotte.
Diachuk is interested in knowing how accurate they’ll be with budgeting for the new arena.
“I’m just looking at how accurately we’re going to anticipate going forward in terms of preparing a budget for the upcoming years,” he said.
The budget was built with historical and future data in mind.
“We look at that when we build our budget for the facility every year,” said Simpson. “We look at what we’re seeing in the future for use as well as what we’ve seen historically.
“I would say when we built our budget for council approval in November/December, we had estimated these rates and feel like we’re pretty on-par with what we put in the budget.”
While some contracts for leasing the new facility have been signed, one is still in negotiations.
“We’re still negotiating the kitchen and concession agreement,” said Turcotte.
Discussion began to centre around the previous budget, which was prepared in 2023. The original budget was prepared with the assumption that two arenas would be closing in Lloyd.
“When you look back at that 2023 budget, the assumptions that were made when we prepared that for council was the closure of both the Civic and the Archie (Miller Arena),” said Simpson.
Simpson says the biggest increased cost centres around borrowing.
“The largest gap though, in our increased cost, is around borrowing,” she said. “Operationally, besides a few minor things, we’re fairly similar to the way we operated the Civic Centre, even though it’s two sheets (of ice).”
Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers pointed out that none of their facilities make money.
“We don’t lose money, it costs money to provide recreation and culture,” he said. “It’s a cost to the tax payer, there is a difference, but I think that piece that none of our recreation facilities make money.”
Coun. Michele Charles Gustafson pointed to her concern around the budgeting.
“What I’m most concerned about is the gap between what we said we’re going to do and what we are going to do with the numbers that are now real, staring in front of us,” she said.
Discussions continued, while another fact came to light around the cost of renting any facility.
“If you rent the Archie Miller compared to the Cenovus Energy Hub, compared to the Russ, compared to the Servus Sports Centre, it’s $175 an hour,” said Lopez. “It doesn’t matter where you’re renting it, if it’s the Archie or the Cenovus Energy Hub, the rental rate is the same.
“We don’t charge our user groups more to be in the new facility, even though it costs us more to run that facility than it is the Archie Miller.”
Council accepted the lease agreement report as information and requested the item be brought back to a future council meeting for decision.
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