Council changes direction on Park Community Centre, again

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This article was published 19/04/2022 (1620 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was tagged for demolition, slated for renovation, and yet another course correction was proposed for the beleaguered Park Community Centre at Brandon City Council on Tuesday.

After city staff presented a report stating a recent engineering study showed too much damage to properly fix the existing structure, council decided to table a motion suggesting the centre be replaced instead of repaired at a cost of an extra $700,000, after members of the facility’s board expressed concerns about a lack of communication.

In 2018, the city’s building safety department released an assessment of the Park Community Centre detailing numerous structural, mechanical and electrical issues that needed to be resolved on top of necessary accessibility upgrades.

In December 2020, the city held online engagement sessions where the 140 participants split the vote approximately 50-50 on whether to repair or demolish the structure.

Administration looked into the potential cost of repairs and in June 2021, recommended to council the city demolish the Park Community Centre and replace it with a green space.

The month after that, Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Rosser) convinced his council colleagues to vote for a motion calling for administration to pursue the repair, upgrade or replacement of the centre instead of demolishing it.

At the end of last month, after not hearing about any progress on the issue, the secretary-treasurer of the centre’s board of directors, Colleen Sigurdson, made an appeal to council to move the project forward and not leave the community without a working facility for another year.

Sigurdson, who spoke on behalf of the board at the council meeting Tuesday, told the Sun earlier in the afternoon there was a mix of excitement and confusion among her colleagues, who were left wondering why the city decided to change its strategy for the facility at this point.

Despite the 40-person capacity limit imposed by the structural issues, she said there is still a healthy demand for event bookings at the community centre.

She said city manager Ron Bowles informed her of the change in direction ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

According to administration’s presentation on Tuesday, an engineering firm looking at the building in February told the city “the cost to repair Park Community Centre was not good value for money and posed high risk for scope creep.”

That’s why administration recommended to council they amend their decision from last year to change the wording to only include soliciting proposals for the replacement of the centre.

The price for a 2,000-square-foot building would cost around $700,000, a 2,500-square-foot building around $875,000, and a 3,000-square-foot building around $1,050,000.

In all three cases, the price per square foot is estimated to cost approximately $350. Costs of $100,000 to demolish and abate the existing structure as well as a 15 per cent contingency fund would also be needed.

During her presentation, Sigurdson expressed an interest in working with the city to find grants to help pay for work at the community centre.

While the prospect of a new facility is exciting, she said the Park board doesn’t want any other community centre to be added to the chopping block as a result.

After Sigurdson was done speaking, another member of the Park board, Eldon Schmitz, came to the podium to complain that after four years of limbo, this new plan — revealed out of the blue — contradicts what the board actually wants: to save the existing building.

Coun. Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) said she had been briefed on the proposed changes and asked if the Park board had been given any of the information. The four assembled representatives said they hadn’t been given any information or invited to any meetings.

Following up, Coun. Jeff Fawcett (Assiniboine) asked Sigurdson if there aren’t other places in Brandon that can accommodate the events formerly scheduled at the centre.

“Councillor Fawcett, if you’re asking if there’s a need, we think there’s a need,” Schmitz said. “We believe it’s part of downtown.”

After Sigurdson mentioned the idea of applying for grants, Coun. Shawn Berry (Linden Lanes) asked what kind of luck she has had in having them approved. She said a couple of $500 grants had been obtained with a few others currently in the application and assessment stages.

Berry later said it had been his experience with the Park issue over the last two years that there had been a lot of misinformation and miscommunication.

He asked who had brought forth the motion, and pointed to it having been raised by administration as part of the miscommunication with the Park board upset with council for something that administration had done.

Like the Park board had complained about last month, Berry expressed frustration that he hadn’t seen a request for proposals as asked for by council last year, but was also apprehensive about the price of a complete replacement.

There had been a special meeting on March 22 on the subject of the community centre, Mayor Rick Chrest said, which Berry hadn’t attended.

He then directly asked Schmitz if the Park board wanted the building to be repaired rather than replaced. Schmitz said he wants to see the process of requesting proposals to finally happen and then respond to whatever comes forth.

When it ultimately came time to vote on the new direction for the centre, council unanimously approved a motion from Coun. Glen Parker (Riverview) to table the matter until at least May 16 so council can meet with the board of directors and move from there.

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