City Council has pulled tennis courts from its $30 million indoor turf facility as it moves ahead with the project.
Mayor Bill Mauro led the charge to hold off on the courts and study them at length in the future.
“The goal is to not lose more time,” Mauro emphasizes. “Let’s make a decision tonight, allow our administration to go forward with the planning exercise for the next day on the multi-use indoor turf facility, and that committee can come back as soon as we want it to come back and deal with those other issues.”
Council ratified the over $4 million in engineering work that will narrow down specifics of the project, including design.
They are also applying for $1 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, to be put towards that work.
Mauro told his fellow Councillors last night that he isn’t removing tennis from the project forever.
“This would remove [the estimated $9 million cost], and referring the final decision on what the tennis will be to the sub-committee,” Mauro explained.
However, Councillor Mark Bentz suggests Council is getting ahead of itself, and should finalize details like whether to include tennis before going ahead.
“Striking committees and doing $4 million worth of work on a facility we have no idea about the funding on is not good business.”
The search for an indoor turf facility was spurred on following the collapse of the Sports Dome on the CLE Grounds in a November 2016 snowstorm.
It threw the soccer community into chaos since both men’s and women’s clubs were forced to cancel their seasons because there was no place to play.
In 2017, local soccer clubs were given a glimmer of hope with news Soccer Northwest was trying to get a temporary facility set up at a vacant sawmill on Maureen Street but that fell through because of a legal roadblock.
Fast forward to early 2018, when city council started the process by voting to build such a complex, which was kicked into high gear after administration began working behind the scenes to make a reality at Chapples Park.
Thunder Bay’s mayor Bill Mauro has made building the turf facility a top priority throwing his full support behind it.
