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Fire-damaged arena to get ice Fort Smith council expected to officially approve repairs this week
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 16, 2013
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Despite an uncertain future since a fire in May, the Fort Smith Centennial Arena is expected to be back in operation by next month with the opening of a new ice surface.
Jeff Perry, an employee of the Town of Fort Smith, points out areas of Centennial Arena which were damaged by a fire in May. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo |
A number of steps will be taken to allow the facility to operate while repairs are underway.
The target date for opening is Oct. 15.
On Sept. 10, members of the town's Municipal Services Committee voted unanimously in favour of a recommendation to move forward with the repairs. The recommendation will go to a regular council meeting on Sept. 17 for official approval.
The committee is also recommending that town administration contract an architectural design firm to deal with code compliance issues and other work required as a result of the fire.
Coun. Chris Westwell said it just makes sense to go ahead with repairs, instead of shutting the facility down permanently, and starting anew.
"The damage wasn't substantial enough at all to justify even considering a new building," he said, adding the town should count its lucky stars that the arena can be repaired.
Jim Hood, senior administrative officer with the Town of Fort Smith, updated the committee on a Sept. 9 meeting with an insurance adjuster and a representative of the insurance company.
"They don't have a firm estimate on what the cost to repair the building is and they won't have that until they actually go to tender, if that's the direction council chooses to go, but numbers have been in the range anywhere from $800,000 to perhaps $1.2 million," Hood said.
That repair work would be covered by insurance.
"So our recommendations are that, considering the extent of the damage to the arena and the possibility of another 20-to-25-year useful life of the facility, we move forward with the repairs for the arena," he said.
That should mean the arena would be back to its pre-fire state by October of next year.
For this coming season, there would be temporary arrangements to use the ice surface while the repairs proceeded.
The May 13 fire damaged or destroyed the arena's public washrooms, a change room, a First Aid room, a boiler room, and a section of the stands for spectators.
Hood said the adjusters had an engineer look at the damage and it was deemed to be superficial with no significant structural damage, such as to beams, which means huge savings for the town.
"Otherwise, we could be looking at a substantial cost and certainly a substantial loss of use of the facility."
Demolition of the damaged area is already complete.
Hood said there is a separate pool of insurance money - $250,000 - for code upgrades outside of the fire-damaged area.
For example, electrical connections need to be repaired, sprinkler heads need to be removed or replaced, and the seating area needs to be redesigned.
Hood said the adjuster's rough estimate is that the code upgrades will cost between $285,000 and $300,000, meaning the town may have to cover between $35,000 and $50,000 of the work.
The insurance company is also providing $250,000 for loss of use to cover the extra expenses to continue operations this coming season while the repairs are ongoing. That will include such things as temporary change rooms outside the arena and some walls.
That $250,000 does not take into account $25,000 the community won recently in the national Kraft Celebration Tour contest.
Coun. Don Webb said the town has an excellent opportunity to get the arena back to where it was before the fire, and to do some extra work on the exterior of the building, the canteen and other parts of the facility.
"I think we should be using some imagination in this and doing some thinking when we're talking about this with the architects and engineers when they come here," he said, adding the arena could be made into a better, and nicer looking, facility for many years to come.
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