City of Greater Sudbury plans to start building new arena and event centre by 2026
Council also directs staff to study the potential for a new municipal swimming pool
The City of Greater Sudbury expects to choose an architecture firm to design a new downtown arena and event centre by the end of November.
City staff updated council on the project's status during the council meeting on Oct. 8.
The city received five submissions from different architecture firms. Although none of the main firms are based in Sudbury, some are partnering with local firms.
The city is expected to choose the site for the new event centre by January 2025 and construction is due to start in 2026.
Next steps for the project include finalizing terms with the Sudbury Wolves hockey team and Sudbury Five basketball team – both of which play their home games at the downtown Sudbury Arena.
Finding a venue operator is also on the city's to-do list for the project.
A new pool and a deal with Laurentian
In addition to plans for the event centre, council was also updated on the status of municipal swimming pools and the Olympic-sized Jino Tihanyi Pool at Laurentian University, which has been closed since the spring of 2020.
The average age of the city's municipal pools is 50 years old, which "exceeds the average expected useful life of a new publicly-owned pool in Ontario," according to a presentation from staff.
The last pool built by the city was Howard Armstrong Recreation Centre in 1983.
Public engagement with 1,100 residents who use the city's pools found that the pools need to be modernized.
But it would cost more to modernize existing pools than to build new ones.
Around $866,000 a year is needed to maintain city pool facilities in "fair" condition and up to $2.45 million a year would be needed to address all recommended lifecycle needs.
Currently the city budget has allocated $62,000 a year to maintain the pools.
At Tuesday night's meeting council directed staff to begin a feasibility study next year to build a new aquatic centre, which would include a 25-metre pool with a separate warm water tank.
It would be located in the suburban community of Azilda, near the proposed Lionel E. Lalonde Centre therapeutic pool project.
Staff were also directed to continue working with Laurentian University to build a business plan which would allow it to re-open its pool.