A “best-case scenario” could see a new south end community centre built by as early as 2020 or 2021.
Guelph City Council was told that the detailed design of the proposed new facility will be completed by the end of this year.
Staff will then come to council early next year with a report that includes full costing for the proposed facility, said Mario Petricevic, the city’s general manager of facilities management.
He was speaking at Tuesday’s meeting of council’s committee of the whole in response to queries from Ward 6 councillor Mark MacKinnon.
It will then be up to the new council to decide if it wants to include the facility in the 2019 budget.
If so, a tender would be issued and “we could be in the ground in the beginning of July (2019),” Petricevic said.
The price tag on a proposed south end community centre has previously been discussed as around $60 million.
The detailed design cost is $3.6 million, already approved, with the majority of that covered by development charges.
The facility is to include a pool, two gyms and two ice pads. It will be located beside Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School, just north of the Larry Pearson baseball complex.
The facility is 160,000 square feet, twice the size of the Victoria Road Recreation Centre and 30,000 square feet bigger than the West End Community Centre.
“We’re on track to do something major for next year,” MacKinnon said, adding that the facility is something the whole city needs, not just the south end.
MacKinnon commented that he couldn’t imagine a new council (there’s an election in October) being so “short sighted” as to not want to proceed with the facility.
“It’s clearly an important facility, not just for south Guelph, but all of Guelph,” MacKinnon said.
Petricevic said that the detailed design will include a number of green features, including some solar panels on the roof.
One of the challenges of the location is parking, he added.
“There’s a significant shortage at the moment,” he said.
