A plan to return to normal service levels and fully reopen the city's six arenas, civic centre and aquatic centre is going before city council on Monday.
In a report going to city council on Monday, city director of community services and public safety Adam Davey said resumption of normal indoor recreation activities is expected as early as Sept. 7.
"As many of these services were cut/reduced in 2020, to counter the revenue loss because of Covid-imposed restrictions, the 2021 City Budget did not include the return of these services in order to keep taxes as low as possible," Davey wrote. "Administration recommends using the Provincial Restart Grant monies to resume indoor recreational services to Prince George, to a high-level estimate 2021 net cost of $110,000."
City staff are recommending that some of the roughly $3 million the city has left from the provincial Safe Restart Grant be used to cover the costs of reopening the facilities this year.
Fully reopening arenas, the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre and returning to normal operations at the Prince George Aquatic Centre was expected to increase costs by $915,226, Davey wrote. That is partially offset by an estimated $805,131 in revenues from user fees.
Fully reopening the facilities would mean hiring the equivalent of 14 full-time positions, to bring staffing levels back to the level seen in March 2020.
"The fixed costs of owning these facilities have always remained but contracted services, such as catering in the Conference and Civic Centre and the acquisition of shows for the CN Centre now need to come back online. Rehiring of staff is also necessary to meet the demand of pre-pandemic levels of activity," Davey wrote. "The good news is that the offset for most of these variable expenses is the anticipated return of normal levels of revenue. The difficult part is predicting how quickly, and to what extent, those revenues will come back."
TIMELINE FOR REOPENING
The Kin 2 and Kin 3 arenas are currently open and have ice in them. Under the city's plan, the Kin 1 arena would reopen with ice on Aug. 16, CN Centre on Aug. 30, Rolling Mix Concrete Arena on Sept. 12 and the Elksentre on Oct. 2.
Northern Health has leased the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre until Dec. 31, and is using it as the city's COVID-19 vaccine clinic.
"Supporting this effort remains the City’s first priority. The vaccination rollout continues to progress well, and cautious optimism suggests the vaccine clinic may conclude in the early fall," Davey wrote. "If this is the case, the PGCCC may be available for community use and rentals as early as late fall. Planning and preparation for a November return date ought to begin this summer to ensure staffing and supports are in place to reconfigure the facility back to a conference and civic centre, complete with food and beverage service, resume bookings, and so forth."
The Prince George Aquatic Centre is currently open, but operating at limited capacity with public health restrictions in place. If B.C. moves to the next phase of the restart plan on July 1, as anticipated, some of those restrictions could be lifted.
The sauna and steam room could be reopened with three-person limits, the wave pool can resume having waves, spectator would be permitted at the pool and masks would be recommended instead of mandatory.
The aquatic centre is scheduled to close from Sept. 6 to Oct. 11 for annual maintenance. There will be no pool available during those weeks, because the city has permanently closed the Four Seasons Leisure Pool.
When the pool reopens in October, it is expected to be able to fully reopen to normal use –including swim meets, gym use, lessons, school and group bookings, etc.
"The demand for pool use has been consistency high during Covid, peaking at a 6-week registration in advance for popular weekend swim-times," Davey wrote. "For context, the limited swim lesson opportunities during the past few months have generally sold out in five minutes of opening."
REOPENING NEEDED, GROUPS SAY
City council received letters from a number of community groups calling on the city to reopen its facilities this year.
Prince George Minor Hockey Association president Glynis Vennberg called on council to reopen the Elksentre sooner than October.
"If the (Elksentre) remains closed, we will not have any ice for tournaments or other events in our city, and will struggle to provide our planned existing programs such as our new Northern Female Development initiative, goalie clinics, and regular games," Vennberg wrote. "As things sit now, we may have to send our scheduled home games for our North Central District to Quesnel and Williams Lake which is less than ideal just to fulfill our league requirements."
The association already has 550 children registered for the 2021-22 season, and expect to have 900 to 1,000 by the end of the summer.
In a joint letter to council, Tourism Prince George, the Northern BC Tourism Association, Tourism Industry Association of BC and BC Hotel Association called on the city to confirm the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre will be open to host events by March.
The city was expected to host the 2021 BC Tourism Industry Conference, but the event was postponed until March 2022 because of the pandemic.
It would be the first time the event has been held in northern B.C. and the civic centre is the only facility in the city large enough to host the event, they wrote.
"This combined conference will bring delegates from around the province together to collectively work on recovery and resiliency for all. As it will be the first in-person conference for the tourism and hospitality sector since the pandemic, this conference could attract up to 500+ attendees over four days in March," the organizations wrote. "Planning for the conference, including a confirmed date, must begin in early July to ensure a successful event. Therefore, we respectfully ask Mayor and Council to pass a resolution that the Civic Centre be open and ready to host the event in March, 2022 by June 30th, 2021."
The conference was expected to generate roughly $350,000 in local economic activity, not including any extended stays to watch the 2022 Women's World Curling Championship.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Council will debate the reopening plan at Monday's night's council meeting, which will be open to the public for the first time since Dec. 5.
Seating will be limited to 50 people, and an "overflow room" with a live broadcast from council chambers has been established on the second floor of city hall to accommodate any additional people.
