It’s no secret that Prince George has a lot of ageing infrastructure.
To tackle the issue, the city discussed its 2019 Civic Facilities Renewal Strategy at last night's (July 15) council meeting –and the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena (RMCA) stood out as one of the oldest and costliest buildings the city owns.
The Civic Facilities Renewal Strategy was assembled from data gathered in the 2018 Civic Facilities Assessment presented at the Feb. 4 council meeting.
“Infrastructure assets provide a service to our community if there is not enough money to fix or replace these assets then services will be impacted and possible closures will occur,” explained city utilities manager Christy Brown. “But, of course, there’s limits to spending so the purpose of this strategy is to prioritize our spending on where it’s critical.”
The strategy found that estimated annual average reinvestment requirement for higher risk building system components, including electrical works, fire protection, HVAC, plumbing, exterior enclosure, and roofing, is $4 million.
An additional $600,000 per year is necessary to include the interior finishes of the buildings, such as interior doors and windows, flooring, and walls for a total of $4.6 million.
That means consideration should be made to invest, on average, between $4 and $4.6 million annually in addition to the $2.8 million already approved in the City’s current 2019-2023 Capital Financial Plan for civic facilities building systems renewal.
Over the last 10 years, the City has funded an average of $1.7 million per year on critical building system components.
Face-off between the Prince George Spruce Kings and the Brooks Bandits in Game Six of the 2019 Doyle Cup (via Kyle Balzer)However, arenas were identified as the city’s costliest facilities.
The RMCA is 61 years old and the city says it requires significant renewal investment in order to continue to provide the service it’s expected to.
The city has invested $1.8 million in this arena over the last 10 years on projects like the roof replacement and exterior upgrades and more than $11 million over the next 10 years is still required.
The HVAC system and the floor replacements add up to over $3.5 million alone.
Some of the water piping in the foundation has failed recently and it is unknown whether the floor of the arena will last another five to 10 years.
The city says arenas’ ice plants will eventually have their chillers replaced with smaller units.
These plate and frame style units reduce the amount of ammonia usage, use less energy and are safer and the estimated cost for these replacements will be determined in the near future.
Brown says funding for the Civic Facilities Renewal Strategy may include a variety of sources including borrowing, grants, fees and charges, base rates and revenue from property and parcel taxes.
“Administration will also continue to explore opportunities for the city to divest of aged facilities this can be through, sale, demolition or replacement,” says Brown. “For example, the age of the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena and with the amount of reinvestment required around $11 million this could be a candidate to consider replacing with a modern facility instead of investing in renovations.”
Although the RMCA was identified as a potential candidate for divestment, nothing is set in stone. The Civic Facilities Renewal Strategy itself will first have to be added to the Finance and Audit Committee’s work plan before it comes back to council.
“This asset deterioration can be managed and we can find methods to address the problems,” said Coun. Garth Frizzell. “You’ve given us a scope to see what the cost could look like, and with that in mind I know there’s some work that needs to be done.”
Mayor Lyn Hall said the RMCA sets the tone for what the city is dealing with.
“I think the number that really stands out for me is the $11 million on the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. That’s a staggering number and I know that every year we invest a tremendous amount of dollars into that particular facility and we are going to start seeing a lot more of that as our facilities age.”
