Different communities deal with aging recreational infrastructure in different ways.
In Bradford West Gwillimbury, town council retained a consultant to begin to look at the future use of the Bradford and District Memorial Community Centre, built in the mid-1950s, and the surrounding Centennial Park at 125 Simcoe Rd.
The Town of Innisfil took a different approach in considering the future of one of its aging recreational facilities.
The Stroud Community Centre was built 45 years ago. Its ice surface is still in use and “everything is in good order,” said manager of operations Jason Inwood, adding the adjacent public library and Stroud Curling Club are also well used.
The issue is that the arena will need an estimated $2.3 million in upgrades during the next decade, even as use of the ice surface is declining.
Ice rink revenues have been declining since 2016, said Inwood, and the town wants to know if the aging facility still meets the needs of residents. But, instead of retaining a consultant, the municipality has gone directly to the residents.
Innisfil launched an online survey asking for input. On Jan. 24, an open house was held upstairs at the Stroud arena.
In part, the open house was designed to bust rumours that have been running rampant since the question was first raised: Town staff noted there are no plans to sell the property, no plans to close either the curling club or the library, and the banquet hall will continue to be in operation.
The goal was also to hear from residents about the type of recreational activities they want, which would optimize future use of the facility.
“When you go to the numbers, the cold, hard facts, the usage is dropping,” from 90 per cent use to 84 per cent at peak times, and 79 per cent on weekends, Inwood said. “It becomes financially unfeasible to continue. We either need renewed interest in ice programs, or for us to take a step back. Is there a different use?”
He emphasized there will be no impacts on either the curling club or library, except that increased use of the arena could generate greater interest and traffic for the co-located uses.
Response was mixed. Carolyn Alksnis, a director of the Stroud Curling Club, was grateful for the opportunity to provide input at this point in the process. “This is an aging building. It’s going to need work… and planning takes time,” she said.
Not everyone who attended the open house bought into the town’s vision. Karen Kelly, treasurer of the Stroud Seniors Club, arrived with other club members to protest the apparent cancellation of their contract to use the auditorium once a week.
The Stroud Seniors have about 120 members, 55 from Innisfil and the rest from Barrie and surrounding areas, Kelly said. Nearly three-quarters of the membership turns out each week to play bid euchre and progressive euchre, but they have been told their contract to use the auditorium will end this June and will not be renewed.
“It’s a great group of people. We celebrated our 50th anniversary,” Kelly noted, warning the future of the club is uncertain at this point. “There aren’t many locations big enough to hold us that are wheelchair accessible.”
Innisfil has been “very generous with the rental – but I don’t know where we can go that would be affordable," Kelly said.
Innisfil Coun. Donna Orsatti attended the open house and said the seniors had been bumped not by plans to renovate the community centre, but by the new business incubator program, which will need to use the upstairs auditorium in Stroud as office space for start-up businesses.
Orsatti suggested space might be made available at the Innisfil Recreational Complex on a different day, but that all programs have to share the facilities.
“We may have to reschedule… to share it with other community users,” Orsatti said. “It takes co-operation on everyone’s part.”
The Stroud Community Centre is aging, she said. “We know we have to invest in it to keep it going. Why do that without checking in with our residents?”
Other people at the open house questioned the claim that ice use was declining.
Rob Figliano, vice president and tournament chair of Lefroy Minor Hockey, said he already has difficulty securing ice time in Innisfil for his tournaments. The recentl Lefroy Tournament had to book ice at the Barrie Molson Centre, as well as in Beeton and at the Nottawasaga Inn Resort.
“There’s 110 townhouses going in here (in Stroud). The population is growing, and they’re closing an arena?” Figliano asked.
He pointed out the average number of ice rinks in municipalities with a similar population is five. Innisfil has four.
“Prime time (5-10 p.m.) is always booked,” Inwood agreed. “It’s non-peak hours… and weekends (that) are declining. We’re not generating the revenues, we’re not seeing the use we were… I’m taking a revenue approach to this. These are the facts.”
Some of the suggested uses for the Stroud arena included an indoor playground, rock climbing wall, tennis courts, fitness facility, trampoline park, dog show venue, and an ice skating rink.
“I think the existing facility is great the way it is,” wrote one resident.
Others urged the town to keep the ice rink, but upgrade the facility and expand the dry uses of the arena in summer, when the ice is out.
Inwood said it's good to get the discussion going, because “we’re in the very, very early stages of discussion.”
“We’re not shutting down,” he said, just looking at the options for generating additional revenues, especially during the summer months, when the ice is out.
A report is expected to come back to Innisfil council in February, when the town will decide how to move forward.
It is a different story down in Bradford West Gwillimbury.
Consultant MHBC, retained in spring of 2017 at a budgeted cost of $80,000, came up with a multi-million-dollar plan that would replace the existing tennis courts, ball diamonds and soccer pitch at Centennial Park with a skating path, bandshell, skatepark, playground areas, as well as create a new administration centre and affordable housing.
The consultant looked only at possible uses of Centennial Park, and did not consider potential future use of the 62-year-old community centre. Stakeholder meetings and public input began in October.
“Refining the plan and developing an implementation strategy is a new priority for council,” said town CAO Geoff McKnight, noting a report is expected this spring “that sets out our key steps for moving forward.”
