The Centennial Civic Centre’s fate has been sealed following a council motion that will see the building demolished in 2026.
The Civic Centre, which has been serving the Lloydminster region since 1967, will close its doors permanently, making way for the Cenovus Energy Hub.
Council heard a presentation at the Sept. 8 regular council meeting and had the opportunity to discuss the old barn’s future.
Read more: Civic Centre to be demolished
Administration reported some good news for the Cenovus Energy Hub.
“We did our soft opening this week,” said Joel Turcotte, the city’s director of recreation and cultural services, at the Sept. 8 meeting.
Councillors around the table weighed in on what they wanted to see happen to the Civic Centre. Coun. Michele Charles Gustafson says closing the building is something that has to happen.
“In the scope of what we need to do, we rely on experts to tell us things that we don’t know and the experts have told us it’s time to pull the plug,” she said. “This is something that has to happen.”
Details were provided on specifics for demolition. Decommissioning of the Civic Centre will be included in the capital budget.
“Demolition, we’ve put together a budget for a total of $1.3 million,” said Turcotte.
In terms of what happens after the building is gone, administration clarified they don’t have the price for what they would sell the land for yet. That particular piece of information would return to a future council meeting for decision.
There’s also a number of items inside the arena that could be sold.
“Our estimation is that we believe we could get about $90,000 for items in there that we could sell,” said Turcotte.
Administration clarified long-term repairs weren’t explored as part of the Civic Centre’s future.
“(At the) time of the initial report it wasn’t recommended to look at long-term repairs, so the engineers didn’t look past that,” said Tracy Simpson, the city’s executive manager of community development services. “We didn’t explore any of those options.”
Coun. Justin Vance wants the city to explore all possibilities for the arena’s future.
“I really hope we looked at all options before it came to this moment,” he said.
Vance asked if it would be possible to put it on the market to sell the building and administration said it would be up to council’s direction.
Coun. Jim Taylor weighed in with the notion of keeping the Civic Centre around as a backup ice facility.
“I’m kind of having some mixed feelings about having the potential option or cost to keep it operational just as a backup facility,” he said.
Keeping both facilities open would be a challenge for the city staff.
“The biggest challenge, it would be staff and labour, we’re splitting the team between the two facilities and that’s definitely not a long-term solution for them to operate,” said Simpson.
She clarified they plan to put the Archie Miller Arena ice in early to help alleviate some of the pressure.
Some things will still need to be done when the doors of the Civic Centre do close.
“We do have to check on it daily for insurance purposes,” said Simpson. “We’ll still keep basic power and heat in the building so, it doesn’t freeze up. We’ll check for break-ins.”
There’s one last event at the Civic Centre, a wedding happening in October, prior to the proposed Oct. 6 closing date.
Taylor wanted to see the motion not have an effective date instead of the Oct. 6 date, leaving it open to administration on when to close it.
Turcotte provided some details as to how work at the Russ Robertson Arena is going.
“We’re still currently working on that project,” he said. “We are still currently looking at the end of October, early November.”
Coun. David Lopez said the Civic Centre could still be used as an ice surface while the Russ Robertson is undergoing construction.
“I feel like we need to put the Civic Centre up for sale, put a tender out there, see if somebody wants it,” he said. “To shut it down Oct. 6 and then open up the Archie Miller to put another ice surface in, to not know how the falls going to be, to not know when the Russ Robertson’s going to be.
“We could use that ice surface until the Russ Robertson’s open.”
He said Oct. 6 is too pre-emptive.
“I think we’re jumping the gun on this one,” said Lopez.
An item that has been discussed is what would happen to the old banners in the Civic Centre. The teams have opted to decide what banners they’d be moving over to the Cenovus Energy Hub.
When it comes to selling the building, Coun. Michael Diachuk says he’s worried about someone buying the building and then selling to someone else, who then could resell it.
“My concern is that, if we sell it and get whatever it is we get and we have this white elephant that’s stuck there because someone ends up with it when it finally deteriorates and somebody hasn’t done the work and we’re left with the clean-up bill at the end of it all,” he said. “I would rather be in charge of our own destiny around that.”
Coun. Jason Whiting said the earlier date pushes everything else into place quicker.
“The sooner this is offline, in my mind, the better for everything else going on,” he said.
Simpson offered a timeline of events that would happen when the building was finally closed down.
“If we closed in October of this year we would put some of the components of the facility in our city auction, late October,” she said.
The city would then start itemization of what they can repurpose, remove anything that hasn’t been removed and shutter it for the winter. There would need to be some specialized work done to decommission the refrigeration plant. The city would be bringing in a refrigeration technician to remove the plant.
“There’s some very specific code requirements when you decommission an ammonia plant,” said Simpson.
Salvage of the building would be considered if there’s anything inside worth saving. A demolition company would come in and do abatement for asbestos or mold if it was found. An extensive amount of reclamation would also be done on the ground.
Boards will be evaluated if they can be reused. Information from the entire process will be brought to a future council meeting.
Mayor Gerald Aalbers says demolition of the building is in the city’s best interest.
“From demolition and decommissioning, I believe it’s in the city’s best interest,” he said. “I don’t know if the city and the residents and everybody believes that.”
Council discussed potentially sending this item back to administration to rework the motion. Charles Gustafson wanted council to be direct with what their intentions were.
“You have to say what it is,” she said. “For me, I was a little bit in the feelings about what’s the community is feeling and we’ve all felt it. My council table feeling says we’ve got to move forward.
“I don’t think we can keep tiptoeing around what the inevitable is here.”
Diachuk asked if anyone had expressed any interest in buying the building up to this point.
“We’ve had two inquiries for the land,” said Simpson. “One was originally interested in the building and after sharing some of the details of the reports they switched to be interested in the land.”
Council directed administration to permanently close the Centennial Civic Centre building and plan for the decommissioning and demolition of the building in 2026.
Lopez and Vance voted in opposition of the motion.
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