Drop Trent twin-pad plan, focus on replacing PMC
On Tuesday Peterborough city council should have taken a longrange assessment of the alternatives before voting to build the twin-pad at Trent University.
Their decision to move ahead with the twin-pad arena at Trent University is fraught with problems.
The projected costs of more than $50 million for the arena even without a pool, the apparent need to spend multi-millions of dollars on a new floor for the Memorial Centre, the projected cost store-arrange the roads around the Trent site and the environmental disruptions construction would cause all beg for much more due diligence from council.
The decision should have waited for their upcoming study on the viability of a new entertainment centre with an OHL arena which should be expanded to include a second ice pad.
A trip to Oshawa and a look at the former GM Place, now the Tribute Communities Centre, shows what can be done with a piece of downtown land and a forward thinking city council. The home of the Oshawa Generals has an OHL arena, a second ice pad, NHL-style dressing rooms, a restaurant, their Sports Hall of Fame and the ability to host any kind of travelling show.
If council set aside the projected $50 million plus for the Trent project, holds off on the questionable $5.5 million plus floor and roof repairs, the former scheduled for the summer of 2019, at the Memorial Centre and allocates a portion of the upcoming profits from the casino, the cost of a new facility downtown would be in reach.
Once we go down that road of the twin-pad and Memorial Centre fix, the possibility of a new entertainment centre for the city will be as remote as having all the city’s cats wearing tags.
As for the urgent need for ice facilities that staff convinced council was needed over five years ago, it was obviously overstated. Organizations have survived with the existing local facilities as well as those in nearby communities. Undoubtedly organizations using our arenas would find ways to get along for a while longer with the present facilities if they knew a new state-of-the-art entertainment complex was moving ahead.
If the entertainment complex is built in lieu of the Trent facility, we would have the same number of ice pads, but with an entertain- ment facility that would put the city back on the map of progressive communities.
As for the apparent imminent need to replace the floor and consequently boards and glass at the Memorial Centre, thereby killing the Lakers 2019 lacrosse season, could be put on hold with professional monitoring, especially if the new facility was fast tracked.
Also, it is foolhardy to put the new twin-pad at Trent University. Besides the problems mentioned above, the location is opposed to the projected growth of the city, in light-of-the-up-coming-completion of the 407 highway.
Secondly, a new downtown facility with two ice-pads would be in complete control of the city, not subjected to the whims of an outside organization. Also the new Trent facility will apparently force the culling of 500 trees and the filling in of some wetland extremely hypocritical for the city dealing with the problems of the environmental concerns our parkway have faced for decades.
Council should put a hold on any moves concerning the Trent complex and the Memorial Centre floor replacement until they have a completed feasibility study of a new entertainment centre. They should also ask that such a study contain a second ice pad and also take a serious look at how Oshawa structured the planning and construction of their complex.
This will be our only chance in the next decade or two to“live outside the ordinary” even if council doesn’t like the slogan.
Don Barrie is a retired teacher, a former Buffalo Sabres scout and a member of the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Peterborough and District Sports Hall of Fame. His column appears each Saturday in The Examiner.