CANMORE – A remaining $129,000 in a budget for lifecycle repairs at the Canmore Recreation Centre will be used for six future projects.
Town council approved the scope increase to use the remaining budget from the original $12.9 million that was originally granted by council between 2017-19.
“This is a multi-year, multi-million project that occurred in an extremely popular facility, which sees over 500,000 users per year and remained open to the public to continue offering recreation services to the facility while the building was renovated,” said Rob Shears, facilities supervisor for the Town of Canmore, at council’s June 4 meeting.
The repairs will be spray foam installation, drywall ceiling repairs, CO2 detector replacement, adding rubber flooring, a heating coil for snow melting and upgrading network capacity to increase energy efficiencies.
Shears said if it hadn’t been approved at the meeting, the projects would’ve been included in a future budget due to the repair need.
“These scopes of work are in alignment with original intent of the [Canmore Recreation Centre lifecycle maintenance] project and address several scopes of work that would otherwise need to be funded in future years in operational and/or capital budgets,” stated a staff report.
The remaining work in the original capital project is anticipated to be completed this year.
“The project focus is on core lifecycle maintenance and component replacement,” stated the updated capital project description.
The recreation centre is the Town’s largest facility at 9,656 square metres and opened in 1983.
The capital project was approved in 2017 by a previous council for $10.32 million. It was amended in 2018 to increase by $105,000 for the addition of a ventilation system for cooking in the concession space.
Another $2.1 million was approved in 2018 for maintenance and a seat replacement project for the Alex Kaleta arena was approved in 2019. A $400,000 spatial needs implementation was also directed in 2018.
The total hit $12.9 million for budget lifecycle repairs and was guided by the 2014 Building Condition Assessment that was done by CCI Group.
A staff report said the project “has effectively revitalized this well-used community recreation facility.”
“Substantial completion of the project happened in 2019, but several projects were left outstanding and the COVID-19 pandemic added extra years to the completion of these projects,” Shears said, noting public feedback has been positive and extra recreation abilities have been made possible due to the necessary repairs.
Mayor Sean Krausert noted the multi-year project has “really added new life to the Canmore rec centre”.
“The vitality and number of activities happening at the rec centre are so much greater than this work was done and it’s a nice building to be inside and the upstairs is phenomenal,” he said.
