CITY OF REGINA WRESTLES WITH RECREATION REVITALIZATION
The City of Regina is aware that sporting and cultural facilities are important to the health of both its individual citizens and to the community as a whole, and it has spent the last few years implementing a plan to revitalize its own recreational infrastructure. Having made progress toward fulfilling some of its original recommendations, it is now pausing to reassess those goals in light of the current population’s priorities.
As a result of research and consultation conducted in 2009 and 2010, the City developed an idea of the state of its recreation facilities and forwarded recommendations as to how those facilities should be supported, expanded or decommissioned. “It was approved by council in 2010, and the plan was developed to help guide municipal investment in sports, culture and recreation infrastructure,” said Laurie Shalley, director of community services for the City of Regina. “The scope really included service areas such as pools, community centres, cultural facilities, arenas, and then a number of outdoor recreation facilities like athletic fields, ball diamonds, playgrounds and skateboard parks.”
The Recreation Facility Plan published in April of 2010 made numerous recommendations, including: that indoor aquatics centres such as the Northwest Leisure Centre and the Sandra Schmirler Centre be bolstered with additional features like spray pads and playgrounds in order to broaden their appeal, that the Lawson Aquatics Centre be gradually replaced with a new complex that features both leisure and international competitive swimming facilities, and that Wascana Pool be replaced with an outdoor aquatic park, complete with a spray pad and lane-swimming pool; that performing arts centres continue to receive funding, but the Neil Balkwill centre be nearly doubled in size through a 10,000-square- foot expansion; and that some of the competitive field space at Douglas Park be enhanced through the installation of artificial turf.
Many of those recommendations have since been implemented, in full or in part. “In some of those areas, we’ve made significant progress, particularly where we’ve been able to partner with the community,” Shalley said.
Douglas Park, for instance, has received enhancements to some of its surfaces in addition to other notable improvements. “A few years ago, we upgraded the playing fields with artificial turf,” said Shalley. “That was done, in part, with provincial and federal funding, but we’ve also had a lot of support from the community organizations.
“We’ve created a support building out there, which has washroom facilities, change rooms and a multi-purpose space. We’ve also upgraded our tennis courts with synthetic surfacing, and we were able to broaden the use of the tennis courts by including pickleball lines, which creates more of a multipurpose type of facility. Our community partners have also added storage spaces and stands, so it’s a place that really has been enhanced as a result of community partnership.”
The leisure centres have also enjoyed some additions and enhancements in accordance with the 2010 plan. “We’ve had support from the Optimist Clubs of Regina, the East Zone Board, and Dream Developments to build outdoor spray parks and play areas to complement the indoor programming,” Shalley said. “We’re continuing to develop the sites, and they’ll be open later this summer.”
Although progress on the spray park and playground at the Northwest Leisure Centre has been slower, that location has received an outdoor rink to create a hub-type facility that can serve a variety of needs.
Now that the plan has been in operation for more than five years, the City has begun a reassessment of its findings and recommendations. “We’re in the process of refreshing the plan,” said Shalley. “Since the plan was created, the city has experienced significant growth, which has resulted in changing demographics. There’s been new partnership opportunities, and our infrastructure continues to age.”
“So, in 2016, we’re actually starting the process to refresh our plan, and our goal is to take a refresh plan to council at the end of 2017 — that will inform our priorities moving forward,” Shalley said. “The original plan that was approved in 2010 will inform the plan that we’re starting to work on now, but we’ll go out again and conduct further community consultations to assess community priorities today. The new plan will also reflect updated information related to the condition of our aging facilities.”