THUNDER BAY --- Consultants will advise the city to achieve a balance over the next decade between city-wide and neighbourhood use of municipal recreation facilities.
Sierra Planning and Management representatives released a presentation of their working recreation master plan draft on Wednesday night as the company named facilities it feels ought to be sacrificed for those the city should improve.
It begins with advising city council to install a second ice surface at Port Arthur Arena as it suggests closing the Neebing Arena. The next rink to double its ice pad would be Delaney Arena.
Sierra director Jonathan Hack explained the recommendations as a hub-and-spoke model for facilities that are used within a city-wide network.
"If you look at arenas, I think it's fairly certain for the majority of use, whether you live in the north or south, east or west, you're prepared to go to whichever facility is going to give you the ice," Hack said.
"Closing a facility only happens if you successfully plan for and invest in twinning another facility so overall, you have a better value for money. It's not about dis-investment. It's about investment, then having some re-purposing that needs to happen."
One of the most stark examples of re-purposing will come in the draft's recommendation to open three splash pads modeled on the one at Prince Arthur's Landing. One of those, which could range between a sprinkler and a wading pool, would replace Dease Pool. Dease has been a neighbourhood fixture for a century, but would cost $2 million to replace. Increased resources could then be committed to the city's existing indoor pools as well as Art Widnall Pool.
Even excluding Boulevard Lake, Hack pointed out, most of the city would still be able to access a pool within a five-minute drive.
When it comes to neighbourhood focus, the plan will recommend city staff be committed to all 12 community centres and boards be established to ensure programming at the centres reflects the needs of the community.
"A lot of these centres rely on volunteers and what it is, is trying to establish a level of service," Hack said.
"They are city-owned facilities, by and large, and as such, the city has a responsibility to make them work more effectively for the taxpayer. All these centres create deficits and those deficits need to be accounted for."
These boards would be most active at the 55 Plus Centre and a burgeoning second senior's centre for the south side at the West Arthur Community Centre.
The plan suggests hubs should even be created for those community centres. It advises a public gymnasium be constructed as part of the Canada Games Complex and another be built as an extension of Sir Winston Churchill Pool.
"We're trying to put an ambition out there for the city. If you look at other places, you might find buildings that don't have pools in them, they don't have ice in them. Some of them have field houses. They have an indoor soccer field, an indoor playground, meeting rooms, a teaching kitchen, the sorts of things you'd invest in," Hack explained.
"The city's not going to invest in a facility that's 10,000 square feet. It might invest in one that's 25,000 square feet. It's a scale that could serve a much larger portion of the population."
The recreation master plan will also address rising and falling trends in sport where there will once again be winners and losers. In light of Confederation College phasing out the city's only indoor tennis courts at The Bubble, the plan will recognizes the sport as one that's on the rise. It will recommend increasing space for indoor tennis as well as replacing baseball diamonds with soccer pitches, complete with installing artificial turf.
"I think everyone would agree that baseball, in every community I've worked in over the last 15 years, baseball is on the decline," Hack said.
"On soccer, I think we're hearing pretty loud and clear, let's get two, three, four additional field surfaces in the best location, which appears to be Chapples Park, as long as we can understand what the cost of doing it there."
Sierra will present the draft plan in full to city council on Nov. 14.
The city is offering a citizen survey on the plan online.
