The Town of Okotoks and MD of Foothills will work together on a unique P3 proposal for a regional field house likely near Aldersyde.
Town council voted Monday to sign an MD application for a P3 Canada grant for a field house proposed near the hamlet of Aldersyde south of Okotoks.
Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson said council’s decision is good step towards improving the space crunch facing sports groups in the area.
“I believe it’s progress, the user groups are waiting for something,” he said.
The concept includes a facility that includes four indoor fields, administrative space and multi-purpose rooms. The estimated price for the facility is $16 million.
The proposal aligns with a regional field house study completed in April 2009.
Under the program the federal government would pay one quarter of the construction cost and the MD and Okotoks would cover the remainder. If other municipalities sign on they would also pay a portion of the cost.
Once complete, the operation of the facility would be contracted out to a private company.
The program would follow a design/build process where private contractors would be given a list of what the municipalities want in a facility and an estimated price. The companies would then draw up plans, submit a proposal and the Town and MD would select which one they want.
As this point, the Town and MD will each have to pay one quarter of a $50,000 consultant fee for the proposal and the federal government will pay the remaining $25,000.
Robertson said the P3 proposal is worth exploring and the Town can pull out of the process if the price increases substantially or anything else changes.
He said the Town can afford to borrow as much as $6 million to pay for its share of the project.
MD Reeve Larry Spilak said it has always been the MD’s preference to see a field house be built in the foothills through a regional partnership. Ultimately, he said the MD wanted to know if it would have a partner or would be going it alone.
“The MD has never stopped working on this and we have been looking at three or four options,” said Spilak.
Okotoks Coun. Matt Rockley said the demand for facilities spans municipal boundaries, so it makes sense for the Town and MD to partner on a facility.
“It has long been my opinion that the best option for this facility is a regional facility and I also feel that a larger site area for the facility is a way to go,” he said.
Coun. Stephen Clark said he would still like to see more information about the P3 program and the proposed facility. He added location isn’t as important as ensuring a field house is affordable.
Clark said he is nervous about how much a facility could cost because the one envisioned by the 2009 regional study would’ve been built in two phases and had a total price tag between $35 million and $44 million.
“That puts chills down my spine,” he said.
MD manager Harry Riva Cambrin said the next step will be to purchase land for a field house. He said this will help determine what the facility will ultimately look like.
He said the MD is looking at sites in the Aldersyde-area, but he wouldn’t identify any specific sites under consideration because negotiations are ongoing.
Riva Cambrin said the MD needed to know if Okotoks would sign on the plan on Monday because it was the deadline to apply for the grant and the next round of applications would not be accepted for another year.
Okotoks municipal manager Rick Quail said facilities such as a field houses generate a large amount of traffic and any site will need to be big enough to accommodate the amount of parking needed, as well as ensuring easy access.
He said there is no site in Okotoks readily available that will meets these needs.
