The Seymour Hannah Sports and Entertainment Centre is getting a facelift, replacing two of the four ice rinks within the Centre. The replacement of ice pad three was approved in 2015, and St Catharines city council recently just approved the replacement of ice pad two.
The decision comes in anticipation of further problems with underfloor heating and cooling systems. The underfloor heating problems were the cause of the replacement of the other two rinks in the four-pad, which happened last year. $4 million has already been set aside in the budget for the revitalization project and the addition of the replacement of rink 2 is not expected to exceed the budget.
The original plan
The Centre is located at 240 St. Paul Street W. and opened its doors in September 2005. The first sign of problems occurred 10 years later in spring of 2015. The Centre closed rink 4 when the staff noticed a hump in the surface of the ice, and then saw the same problems in rink 3, leading to its closure as well.
An investigation found multiple issues in the underground piping. The piping affected all four rinks, and they determined to fix and separate the heating and cooling systems to run independent of one another.
Unanticipated problems
After setting a budget, the city council determined to fix the problems in two phases over two summers. In 2016 the first phase was set to occur, but once the ice was removed from rink 1 they realized the underfloor was severely deteriorated and had to be replaced under both pads it affected (rink 4 and rink 1).
Phase two was set to begin this summer, although experts anticipate that the same issue will be found as in the first phase as both rinks 2 and 3 run on the same heating and cooling system. If the systems are as deteriorated as rinks 1 and 4, both rinks will have to be torn up and replaced.
The budget
The original budget for phase 1 was $2 million, and the completed project came in under budget at $1.56 million. This end cost included the unexpected costs of replacing rink 4 in addition to the first rink.
The revitalization project is one of many going on in Niagara, and will be budgeted an additional $2 million for the second phase of the project. Even if experts are right and the same level of repair is required for phase 2, the expected budget should cover all the costs incurred by the replacement of the rinks.
