Consultant to take closer look at potential Sadlon Arena improvements

The city will pay half the cost of an $85,000 consultant to assess sport tourism’s needs and growth opportunities at Sadlon Arena.

Council decided Monday night that $42,500 will come from the municipal accommodation tax (MAT) reserve — which banks a four per cent levy on room rates at Barrie hotels, motels and AirBnBs — and be provided to Tourism Barrie.

“Over the last decade, we have not seen a lot of sport tourism coming to a city of our size, and we’ve lost out to a lot of places like Thunder Bay and North Bay to some of these large-scale (events), especially curling events,” said Coun. Gary Harvey, council’s Tourism Barrie representative, noting return of investment in these events is high.

“It’s astounding right now,” he said. “So this is to broaden our scope and be able to be a lot more competitive when trying to secure these types of events… which will bring in significant dollars. Most events are between $6 million and almost $20 million on average (to the business community) and some of them even surpassing the $20 million.”

These events could include not only curling, but also hockey and figure skating.

The MAT reserve has a balance of about $474,000, said city treasurer Craig Millar.

But some councillors questioned spending $42,500 on a consultant hand-picked by Tourism Barrie, especially since it was the more expensive of the two that applied for the position.

Coun. Keenan Aylwin asked about the rationale for going with the high-priced consultant.

“I have been told the scope between the two are very different,” Harvey said, “and I understand… that discussions occurred between the executive director of Tourism Barrie and senior (city) management in regards to this. And from what I understand, it was agreed upon among all of them that this particular vendor (consultant) was the more robust one to go with and would provide them with a lot more information.”

Mayor Jeff Lehman voted against the funding motion.

“Choosing the more expensive consultant and then asking council to pay the bill? I would want more information before I was comfortable doing that, because we just finished doing a (2022 operating and capital, city) budget, where we cut much smaller items that benefit all our residents,” he said. “To give that money to a consulting firm, even though it’s coming from a reserve, and may be a very worthy initiative…

“I think sports tourism is an excellent opportunity," the mayor added. "I think we know there’s some interest in expanding our capacity to host sports tourism and so this might well be something that we want to support, as a community, but I really have a problem giving another ($42,500) to a consultant to tell us how to expand (Sadlon Arena) or what else we might be doing on this front. 

“I haven’t even seen the scope of work for this (consultant), and given we cut far less that had far more benefit out of the budget just last week, I’m not going to support having that spending today,” Lehman said.

The funding approval passed by a 6-5 vote, and since it was a direct motion of council, the decision is final.

Councillors did hear Monday night that they will have access to the consultant’s report, which is expected in April or May.

“Consultants are expensive, however they provide expertise in a specific area.” Harvey said. “This consultant cost is at the lower end of the spectrum, if you were to start looking at the costs of consultants for other studies using consultants around the city.

“The selected consultant’s proposal also includes architectural drawings, which can run north of this cost on their own," he added. 

Last August, Barrie councillors looked at resizing Sadlon Arena.

Councillors approved a motion that city staff report back to them before completing and submitting a grant application for the Ontario Community Building Fund'a Capital Stream to expand the Bayview Drive facility.

It would involve a three-storey addition on the north side of the building, including a new grand entrance to the arena with additional multi-purpose/trade show space, ticket booths, concessions, a multi-use sports bar, additional office and retail space, possibly a new home for the Barrie Sports Hall of Fame, additional dressing rooms, player dining and lounge facilities, medical facilities, storage and meeting space, a media lounge and VIP lounge, a new sound system, an upgraded green room along with additional spectator seating too bring its total to about 5,000.