NORTH BATTLEFORD - After years of talk, City Council in North Battleford is finally getting the ball rolling on planning for a new arena.
At their meeting Monday night at City Hall, council voted in favour of authorizing the issuance of a formal request to the Battlefords and District Community Foundation Inc. for $75,000 to be utilized for a preliminary study to plan for the replacement of the Access Communication Centre.
The $75,000 would be drawn from the Saskatchewan Winter Games Fund which is administered by the Battlefords and District Community Foundation. Another $75,000 is budgeted to come from city reserves, for a total of $150,000 towards the study.
The Saskatchewan Winter Games Fund is the legacy fund from the games that were hosted in North Battleford in the winter of 2018. When it was established, the intention was for money from the fund to eventually come back to the city to be used towards a new arena project once the city was ready to launch a fundraising campaign.
According to City Manager Randy Patrick, the arena study would bring back such items as what should be in the building and how this would work on a regional basis, among others. Patrick emphasized the study was also important for Federal and Provincial funding applications.
“It’s important that we get this going and have something ready to go,” said Patrick at the meeting. “Otherwise when the funding comes around, if you don’t have this sort of thing done, you don’t get the funding.”
Council voted in favour unanimously, which clears the way for the city to make the request to the Community Foundation.
The current Access Communications Centre, whose primary tenant is the SJHL Battlefords North Stars, was opened in 1961 and is considered near the end of its useful life. In recent years, the aging facility has seen a host of issues that have needed addressing such as a leaking roof, air conditioning issues, and a malfunctioning ice condenser that was replaced.
A structural assessment in 2023 from Bar Engineering, presented to council last year, had concluded the facility needed $5.42 million in upgrades over a three-year span just to keep the building going to 2038.
