A council committee has sent to council a report it heard Wednesday afternoon from the group tasked with developing a “Plan B” for the downtown land that was originally supposed to house the cancelled Sports and Entertainment Centre.
The committee, consisting of Councillor Keith McGrath, Councillor Tyran Ault and Councillor Lance Bussieres, who was filling in for Councillor Allan Vinni, received the report as information and voted to have the group present the same report on Tuesday, March 15 to all of council.
All three councillors at the committee were receptive to the recommendations made by the group for replacements for the cancelled SEC.
That project was cancelled October 13 following a motion from Councillor Keith McGrath to stop the $580 M plan in its tracks based on public opposition to the project he heard first-hand and as demonstrated by an online public survey that saw more than 70 per cent of respondents opposed to the project.
The municipality has already spent nearly $50 M on the project from the costs of appropriating the land and awarding costs to the three proponents who submitted design and operation bids for the project/
The “Plan B” group has come up with five proposed options for the space that include a multi-plex movie theatre; an urban park; and an event centre that would house an arena and space for the performing arts; selling the land either together or in parcels; or coming up with a public private partnership working together with local businesses.
The front-runner, as decided by consensus, is the mult-plex movie theatre, a design that would include billiards, arcade games, bowling and more in the lobby. The group’s presenter, Bryce Kumka, said part of the appeal of this proposal is that not all of the lands would have to be used.
It also meets all of the criteria the group worked together to create including bringing people to the core who may not otherwise spend leisure time there, providing entertainment, and acting as a needed catalyst for downtown redevelopment.
“We felt that was probably the plan that had the most advantages based on our criteria because it would bring a consistent and continuous draw of people to the downtown, but it had little impact on … the traffic flows and so on. So, we thought that was one of the better options,” said Kumka.
The group was made up of members of the public, representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the Northeastern Alberta Aboriginal Business Association, the Fort McMurray Construction Association, the Oil Sands Community Alliance, the Urban Development Institute of Wood Buffalo, the RMWB and downtown business owners.
Together they worked through a number of proposals and used a method called a Kepner & Tregoe Analysis to weight the proposed suggestions against the criteria identified, discuss the outcomes, make revisions, and ultimately arrive at a consensus among the Committee Members on which five proposals would be presented to committee.
Those same criteria helped the committee reach a consensus on which of the proposals is the preferred. They suggest in the report to be read at committee that the multi-plex theatre is the preferred option, arguing it would draw people downtown and encourage them to spend money at other retail and food vendors. The group also argues the multi-plex could serve as a catalyst for development downtown.
By incorporating a further entertainment component of the multi-plex, such as billiards, bowling, food vendors, arcade, restaurant or bar, the group argues it would encourage use of the facility throughout all times of the day by all people of all ages.
What the report doesn’t address is zoning for any of the options, any potential actual interest, or what to do if not all of the land is used by one project, though Kumka suggested melding two or more proposals since the entire parcel of land won’t be used up by just one of the options.
Council will have a chance to have input on the report and choose how it will be used for future planning at the March 15 meeting.
