The Spirit Centre project just can’t seem to get a break. Since its inception the new arena and fieldhouse facility has made headlines, but not always for the right reasons.
A project of such massive scope — by small-town standards, anyways — is bound to generate headlines. We do our best to cover everything going on in our community, and this is by no means an exception.
It is just unfortunate the project has generated so many controversial and bad-news headlines, like the one on the front page this week.
The bad-news headlines started right when the project was first announced, with the whole town versus county issue that played out. The end result was ratepayers in Westlock bearing the bulk of the capital costs.
Many other arguably more important projects in town like paving roads and upgrading infrastructure were put on hold for this facility that will benefit the whole region. Then came the news that Balon Construction went into a voluntary receivership, essentially passing over the management of its affairs to BDO Canada, a third-party company.
Many in town were on edge with this news, wondering what it would mean for the project. We were assured things would proceed on schedule and on budget, but it’s doubtless many were waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Finally last week, the town announced it would seek a court order allowing it to terminate the contract with Balon, because the company is no longer able to live up to the contract because of some decisions made by BDO — namely laying off the staff member in charge of our project. We have been told there is now a very real possibility the project will end up over budget and behind schedule.
There are no exact details of how much over budget and how far behind the project will be, but no matter how you slice it this isn’t good news.
As we move forward, let’s hope there’s a plan to prevent these additional costs from spiraling out of control, and let’s hope the residents can all realize that nobody associated with the project wanted this outcome — there is nothing to be gained from pointing fingers.
