MORRISBURG – Anyone going into, or even driving past, the arena in Morrisburg can see that the stairs leading up to the main entrance of the building are in desperate need of repair.
At a recent Committee of the Whole council meeting, South Dundas council and their manager of facilities David Jansen reviewed various options to get the arena stairs replaced and the main entrance reconfigured to improve the building’s accessibility.
Council agreed that phase one needs to move forward right away so it passed a resolution to that effect at the September 8th meeting.
Phase one includes an accessibility review and design for the retrofit along with a class D cost estimate.
While council agreed to proceed with that immediately, they did warn Jansen that from past experiences they do not have much faith in Class D cost estimates.
“I’m leery of the Class D estimate, which I’ve found to be a useless piece of paper,” said South Dundas councillor Archie Mellan, adding that he would like to have a better cost estimate than a Class D.
By moving ahead with the first phase which is the design phase, the project should be able to go ahead as soon as April 2022.
“I’d like to see the steps done as soon as possible,” said South Dundas deputy mayor Kirsten Gardner.
“We have to get this started,” agreed South Dundas mayor Steven Byvelds.
“I definitely agree with phase one,” said South Dundas councilor Lloyd Wells, who recommended that they invite local architects to bid on the project rather than going to a full Request for Proposal process.
In addition to moving ahead with the design phase of the project, South Dundas council also approved staff applying for funding for this project.
Staff will apply to the Ontario Trillium Foundation Community Building Capital Grant fund for this Morrisburg Arena Rehabilitation Project.
With South Dundas councillor Donald Lewis’ knowledge of the Morrisburg arena infrastructure, he suggested that an option which also renovates the existing lobby floor would be the best option as that floor is already in poor condition. Council agreed. This option would be neither the most or least expensive of the options.
If their funding application is successful they could be granted as much as $500,000 for the project.