City staffers obsessed with rebuilding Memorial Centre floor
With the Lakers about to enter the playoffs and compete for the right to host the 2018 Mann Cup final, the future for next season is still very much up in the air.
The city is on course to close the Memorial Centre next spring at the end of the upcoming Petes hockey season and rip out the floor and boards. Since the floor is floating, in that it is set on concrete piers, and a second floor was over-laid many years ago, this tear-down will be massive.
Large equipment will be needed to break up the layers of concrete and truck it out. They will then have to bring in fill, lay new pipes, pour a new concrete floor, let it cure then rebuild new boards and insert glass. Based on our city’s track record, we can definitely expect that the project will go way over its projected budget that has ranged as high as $4 million and be late for its projected five-month completion.
This debacle apparently began when the Memorial Centre, wanting to book in some monster trucks, had the floor assessed.
Apparently an engineer saw some loose concrete, which admittedly could have been there for years, resulting to the decision to replace the floor.
Since that declaration, there has been over 18 months of monitoring and there appears to be little or no additional deterioration. Yet, the project continues, apparently now driven by obsessed city staff members.
Obviously lacrosse could continue quite comfortably in the present Centre until city council eventually gets around to building a new entertainment centre.
The problem is uncertainty in the eyes of the hockey Petes. If the floor pipes are dislodged, the worst case scenario is some leakage and the loss of the ice. Apparently there are no real safety concerns and there is an emergency plan in place to use a portable ice making system in such a contingency.
Since this project could very well be a death-blow to major lacrosse in the city, an independent and qualified second opinion is definitely needed. Also, any new assessment should be made in light of the city’s $175,000 consultant report that said the Memorial Centre is past its useful life and needs to be replaced.
By comparison, no right-minded owner of an old car declared obsolescent, would put a new motor in it with a new car on order. But that is what city staff is doing with a prime city facility and taxpayers’ money.
With the dire consequences of suspending a full season for the Lakers and possibly delaying the home season for the Petes, city staff and council seem to be apathetic.
The fiasco from when it was first proposed nearly two years ago has smacked of misinformation, changing financial costs and time frames and a variety of opinions on the actual severity of the condition of the floor.
User groups have had difficulty receiving accurate, up-to-date information from city staff over the course. They have the impression the decision is a fait accompli irrespective of the catastrophic results it will have on local sports, especially lacrosse.
Also not being considered in this is the number of jobs, mostly part-time ushers and restaurant workers that will be lost by this ill-conceived move.
A dollop of due diligence and a smidgen of common sense from all the decision-makers would indicate the intelligent way is a wait-and-see approach to the project and a speed-up of plans on the replacement of the Memorial Centre.
Unfortunately, other than exploring a legal recourse, it appears lacrosse’s only hope, with the way the present council has bought into this plan, is a complete overhaul of council in October’s election similar to what we just saw provincially.