Designs for Energy Centre Expansion Presented to Council

Cold Lake City Council was presented with designs plans for Phase III of the Energy Centre at September 8th, 2015 Council Meeting. Mayor of Cold Lake, Craig Copeland says the design, which The City has been working on for several months, is “pretty exciting.” The expansion is expected to cost the City $29.4 million in capital revenue.

Chief Administrative Officer, Kevin Nagoya, presented the conceptual design of Phase III of the Energy Centre; which includes a second arena with a lounge that will connect Imperial Oil Place with the new arena, and a new design for the front entrance. Mayor Craig Copeland explains, “we’re going to change the front entrance, when you first walk into the building.” Other changes to the building include a gymnastics and dance area. The design calls for transforming the existing field house into an area for the gymnastic’s club and build a new field house.

“We decided to go to design bid build tender,” the Mayor explains, it basically calls out to contractors to put their bid in to construct the project. The architecture and designs are already in place. Mayor Copeland says the City is doing things a little different from the norm, “you have two options when you build these things. Typically, the City in the past, has done construction management.” Examples of that would be the new fire hall and FCSS building, says the Mayor, “on this one, we’re doing design bid build tender. Companies can bid on the whole entire package, and then you know what your fixed price is.”

“We’re going to be doing it in phases, it’s going to be a unique bid. Depending on our cash flow situation and the bid prices, that will determine how much we want to commit to.” The first designs that will go to tender are the second arena, lounge, and front entrance. “That’s step one of the big package,” Mayor Copeland explains in addition, the City will ask bidders for prices on a second field house and converting the existing field house into a gymnastics and dance facility.

“What the architects are saying is, it’s going to be cheaper to convert the existing field house into gymnastics and dance,” a finding the Mayor says is, “quite interesting.” This will mean the Energy Centre will need a new field house constructed, which will allow for expansion of the running/walking track, says the Mayor. “There will be a new running track on top of the two field houses, it will be a really super large running track to use the space of the two field houses.”

The Energy Centre expansion will depend on the City’s cash flow, “once spring comes, we’ll see the tender documents and know how much we’re going to commit to in the various stages.” Construction will hopefully break ground this time next year,  “we’re going to be going out to tender, probably in February or March, as soon as the architects are done their drawings.” If everything goes well, the arena will be ready for skates in the later part of the 2017-18 season. “We hope a year and a half to build,” the Mayor says the second arena will be a little scaled back from Imperial Oil Place, “it’ll be a simpler arena, not as fancy.” The Mayor says the arena will be fully functional for the 2018-19 .

The reasoning behind putting the work out in stages is so the City can take full advantage of the market, explains Mayor Copeland, “we want to take advantage of what we feel is a great time in the market, when the economy is slow.” This will allow the City to follow through with its goal, states the Mayor, “we’re envisioning long-term for the community, our focus has always been to get recreation at one site for mom and dad. Make it easier on them.” The City is mid-construction on a skate park, the Mayor says is coming along quickly, “there’s some pretty fancy concrete cuts in there, we hope to have that done by the end of September.”

In October the City will look at designs for the artificial turf field, that will be used for a variety of activities, including football and soccer. “When we look at the future growth of the Energy Centre, we’re looking at the sports field and a swimming pool,” says the Mayor, “we haven’t made a decision on the final location of the sports field.” CAO Kevin Nagoya is looking for a commitment from Council in the very near future. Council is hoping to see aerial shots of where the field will be place in the designs, which will be provided in mid-October’s Council Meeting, explains Mayor Copeland. “That will be a separate tender that will get put out during the winter. We hope to have the sports field being built-in 2016.”

As for the swimming pool, the Mayor admits is a “future site plan”. A long-term plan, “we’re looking ten years down the road and the goal is to put a swimming/aquatics area in there.”