Chatham-Kent commits up to $18.5M for new arena and sports complex

Chatham-Kent is committing a maximum of $18.5 million to replace two aging arenas with a new twin pad and indoor multi-sport community centre.

Council voted 13-4 in favour of starting the project as soon as municipal funds and dollars from upper levels of government and private sources are secured.

In the meantime, administration will start with primary architectural work and looking at land acquisition options.

"We're planning here for the next 40 to 60 years," said Mayor Darrin Canniff during the hour-long debate. "The last 10 years we've been dealing with old facilities."

However, Monday night's decision wasn't reached easily.

A number of councillors questioned administration's recommendations — especially the part about securing private funding.

"I'm not interested in doing anything until private funding is in," said Coun. Douglas Sulman, who voted against the motion. He pointed to previous failures in fundraising for infrastructure projects.

Eventually, council agreed to amend the wording to say projects won't begin unless private funding is "contractually confirmed."

The current plan is a $63.8 million project that includes an indoor complex for sports such as soccer, tennis, pickle ball.

2,200-seater not enough

Aside from the four councillors who disagree with the administration's recommendations, there were also some delegations opposing the plan.

Nathan Trudell, founding member of Build the Complex CK, thinks the solution that's put forward isn't going to bring enough change to the municipality.

His group wants a 5,000-seat arena complex built on the old Navistar property. The recommendations put forward to council described a 2,200 and 200-seat twin pad facility.

The group's vision is to have a large enough facility that can attract large-scale events like concerts and even the Ontario Hockey League.

Right now, Trudell said the residents are spending a lot of money on entertainment outside of the municipality.

"Everybody needs to understand, if that money was put back into our economy, how much our city would start to flourish," said Trudell.

He feels that building another arena will only keep things at status quo.

"It's not going to do anything to bring new families and new business here, and it's definitely not going to keep our youth here," he said.