ARTHUR – After a months-long renovation, the arena floor at the Arthur and Area Community Centre is in its final stages.
“The floor is poured,” said recreation services manager Tom Bowden at a July 6 Wellington North recreation, parks and leisure committee meeting.
“They took the plastic off yesterday and started forming up the curb, that will go up by the lobby end, by the headers. That will be poured this week.”
The upgrading of the floor is one of several projects the township’s recreation, parks and leisure committee has seen completed this year, thanks to an extensive capital budget program and significant funding from the provincial and federal governments.
Recently, the township partnered with the Arthur BIA to open a new outdoor gym space at the crossroads of Isabella, Charles and Georgina Streets.
The Arthur Pool and Arthur OptiMrs Playground have also received upgrades.
The project was awarded at a March 8 council meeting for $1,078,000. Work began by H. Bye Construction the week of March 15.
Bowden said the boards will be installed the week of July 12.
“They’ve started cleaning up, they’re in the final stages, and are right on target to be done for August 1, which is awesome,” Bowden added.
Although the upgrades to the arena floor did not receive additional funding from the province or the federal government, councillor Steve McCabe, chair of the recreation, parks, and leisure committee, said this was a project that needed to be done.
“The project was entirely budgeted for,” McCabe said in an interview after the meeting.
“The arena floor hasn’t been done since 1977. We had to do this without funding from the province or the feds, who have been really good to us this year.”
McCabe was pleased with the progress that has been made on the project.
“The rate and the speed at which they’re going is fantastic,” McCabe said.
“The floor will sit for close the 40 days, and we will still be ahead of schedule.”
McCabe said because of the pandemic, the township was afforded time to complete this project since recreation facilities were not being used anyway.
“We’ve been able to make great use of our downtime,” he said.
“H. Bye Construction has been great to work with, and we have been right on schedule throughout this entire process. Chad Aitken (at H. Bye Construction) led the way.”
McCabe added that the arena should be available for public use by the time hockey season begins, or once the region is able to move into step three of Ontario’s reopening plan.
