The Northside Rec Centre has been given a thumbs up from council.
Council voted 8-1 last night to incorporate $153-million needed into the city’s capital budget.
Mayor Melissa Blake says with the YMCA shutting down, a need for something like a new aquatic centre is real.
“You’ve got a fantastic aquatics facility downtown, but you have a significant population on the other side of the river,” she continues, “the centralized location of the Abrhams land project gives you access to future development, just as easily as you’d get from Thickwood or Timberlea. North Parsons and the west growth area can also capitalize.”
Blake says the extensive public engagement helped move this project along.
“I think that I give a lot of credit to the Rec Corporation [Regional Recreation Corporation] for undertaking the extensive amount of that effort that they have,” she adds, “so that when they come before council like this, they can verify and justify why they’ve got what they’ve got included in that plan.”
Blake says future expansion of the Northside site is possible, but not guaranteed.
“At this point, I’m not so keen on adding the extra components to it. But I’m a big believer that if the economy changes and we have a significant influx in population then we might have to accelerate the add-ons,” she said.
Council also voted to add all 40.8 million dollars to this year’s budget, so construction on twin ice pads can begin.
