Repairs would devastate Lakers

The president of the Lakers asked council on Monday to consider repairing the floor of the Memorial Centre rather than replacing it next year, because tearing out the floor during lacrosse season in 2019 will “devastate” the team.

Tim Barrie said the Lakers would lose fans, players and sponsors if they are forced to play elsewhere next year, such as the Evinrude Centre.

“It will be lasting – it will take a long time to come back,” he said. “It could be catastrophic…. If we do survive, it will take years to build back up.”

On Monday evening, council was preparing to vote a final time on a plan to tear out the floor of the Mem Centre in 2019 and replace it.

Meanwhile at the arena, the Lakers were hosting the national lacrosse tournament known as the Mann Cup.

Council didn’t immediately debate and discuss the plan; that happened later in the meeting, after The Examiner’s print deadline (see The Examiner online for updates to the story).

At the meeting, Barrie told council there’s no safety concern with the Mem Centre’s floor: engineers have already said it’s safe for another three years, providing there are fewer than 4,000 people on the floor.

Furthermore, Barrie said floor replacement will be more expensive than council thinks.

He said closing the arena for six months for replacement would mean layoffs for employees and lost arena revenue, while council has also committed to having over $250,000 to the Lakers for lost ticket sales.

Barrie said when you add it all up, the final cost to the taxpayer will be closer to $5 million – not $3.5 million.

In the meantime he said the Lakers have reached out to concrete engineers and showed them photos to see whether the floor could be repaired rather than replaced.

Barrie consulted a concrete engineer in Edmonton, he said, who suggested a series of potential fixes.