PEI

Charlottetown Curling Club votes to sell building

The Charlottetown Curling Club has voted to sell its current location on Euston Street.

Club is considering building a new home

The Charlottetown Curling Club is for sale and members are looking for a new home. (Nicola MacLeod/CBC)

The Charlottetown Curling Club is selling its current location and hoping to find a new one.

The club on Euston Street held a meeting Thursday to decide whether to invest in the current facility or to move.

"The biggest factor in the decision-making process was the amount of investment it would take for us to bring this up to the level we would like to have it at today, and the level we need to have it out to go 20 years forward," said club president Tyler Harris.

The club did not run this winter due to a broken ice plant.

Replacing the entire plant would cost about $250,000 — and that's on top of other expenses at the club.

"That level of investment, it's difficult and it's costly. And the question is whether or not building a new facility is not the wiser choice when we're faced in this kind of situation," Harris said.

'Building new and fresh and from scratch, we think, would be the proper way to go,' says Tyler Harris, the club's president. (Tony Davis/CBC)

The club is looking at locations, but Harris didn't elaborate. He said the club is also considering building a new home.

"When you look at it the difficulty level with becoming accessible, and bringing our quality of product that we're offering to the public up to the level it needs to be, is costly and difficult at this stage of the game," he said.

"Building new and fresh and from scratch, we think, would be the proper way to go."

Harris said curling has been on the site for close to 100 years.

A broken ice plant kept the club from operating this winter. (Tony Davis/CBC)

He said the ice shed is actually a hangar that was moved there from the Charlottetown airport after the Second World War.

"We've been here since the 60s when they built this," he said. "It was certainly an emotional meeting, people, you know, remembering the good times they had here and the relationships that they formed here."

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Davis is a video journalist with a focus on municipal government, housing and addiction for CBC Prince Edward Island. He produces content for radio, digital and television. He grew up on P.E.I. and studied journalism at Holland College. You can email story ideas to [email protected].