The Jubilee Recreation Centre (JRC) will be undergoing some major renovations over the next few years.
This comes after the city unanimously approved $16.5 million in funding for the project at Tuesday's (Apr. 25) city council meeting.
Residents can expect some pretty extensive changes to the 58-year-old facility as a result of the renos.
"The project will remove all the support spaces from the existing arena," said Grant Schaffer, the director of fleet, facilities, and engineering for the city.
"The lobby spaces, the existing washrooms, concession, the lower floor where the change rooms are right now, all of that we going to remove and then we are going to rebuild brand new."
Construction on that new part of the arena will be built out onto the grass area in front of the arena and be about double the size of the existing space.
"New and bigger lobby, washrooms, concessions, and actually being able to view the ice surface from the lobby," said Schaffer. "The change rooms that are going in are about double the size of the existing ones."
"This will bring everything up to current standards and current codes."
Schaffer added that the actual ice surface side of the rink is still in good shape and minimal work will be done there.
As for where the money is coming from, $9.285 million is being supplied from money saved up by the city through the Future Facilities Operation Reserve while $4.69 million will come from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative Capital Grant and the remaining $2.5 million will come out of the Canada Community-Building Fund.
While some might wonder why so much money is going into a facility like the JRC instead of building a brand-new arena, Schaffer says it comes down to costs.
"To replace this arena with a new 1,500-seat arena you're probably looking at $30 million plus [to build that]," said Schaffer. "It's a significantly reduced cost [to do this project]."
"[The arena] will be brand-new except for the ice more or less."
Work on the project is expected to begin in about two months with an expected construction time of two years.
During that time, spectator capacity at the JRC will be reduced to 250 people, trailers will be brought in to act as dressing rooms and a lobby, and most big events, such as hockey games, will be played at the DCC.
"There will mostly be practices [at the JRC] for the next two years more or less."
Here is a look at some designs of the project: