Exciting news to share today regarding the Winkler Centennial arena renovation project. The City of Winkler is signing a Letter of Intent with Bockstael Construction regarding its submitted proposal and budget for the Centennial Arena renovation project.
"We're going to sign a Letter of Intent with them, so we can start demolition and preparation for construction as we continue to negotiate a guaranteed maximum price with them," explained Mayor Henry Siemens. "This is something we want to keep moving as quickly as we can. Our hope, and our expectation, is still that we will be substantially complete with that project by December 31st, 2025."
Siemens added the city is also very close to sharing a conceptual drawing with the community.
"As soon as we can do that, we'll make as much noise as possible, knowing people are very interested to see what that looks like," he said. "We are at a place that we're ready now to move forward with it."
It may seem like getting into the minutiae of municipal infrastructure contract language, but the "guaranteed maximum price" being negotiated is a crucial part of the agreement, according to Siemens.
"One of the things we have to do in order to be able to get that price is we have to make sure we negotiate in all those things we want done," he said. "Afterwards, the only way that price will change is if there's something outside of what we said we want to get done, or if there's a structural question we don't yet know that comes up. We're really confident in this builder, and the reputation they have in the community. Some of the interactions that we've had with them already, as we're negotiating this, we're looking forward to being able to move forward. It is important that as we do this we make sure we do each one of these things well, knowing there is a significant demolition part to this renovation as well, that those two things can happen simultaneously, so our schedule isn't impacted too much further."
The multi-million dollar project has secured funding from both the Federal and Provincial governments. The feds are providing about $8 million, with the Province supplying about $3.1 million. The City will be using about $5.1 million from its Recreation Reserve Fund, and is also borrowing $7.5 million.
You can listen to more of the In the Mayor's Chair conversation, below.