WESTLOCK – Jubilee Arena has received yet another reprieve from the wrecking ball, with Town of Westlock officials now uncertain when the 59-year-old facility will be razed.
Town of Westlock CAO Simone Wiley confirmed Sept. 23 the contractor has completed all the necessary interior work required before the demolition, but the crew has been delayed on a different project and they’re working to establish a return date — previously town officials had pegged the weeks of Sept. 12 and Sept. 19 when the next phase of the $280,000 demolition would start.
Wiley said the delay is somewhat frustrating as she had initially hoped the project would be completed by the end of September.
“It is disappointing. The seemed to have an aggressive timeline to start with, so I guess I’m not overly surprised that it’s taking longer than originally anticipated,” said Wiley Sept. 23.
The demo was initially budgeted to cost $1 million and funded via unrestricted reserves in the town’s 2022 capital budget, although Wiley said previously there will be additional costs to landscape the site in 2023 — Jubilee Arena, which was initially called the Westlock and District Jubilee Family Recreation Centre, opened July 13, 1963, and cost $75,744 to build.
At town council’s Sept. 12 meeting, operations director Robin Benoit said concrete from Jubilee will be recycled at the local Lafarge Canada site for free while the contractor has given them a credit back on the metal that can be scavenged.
Jubilee Arena was supposed to come down following the opening of the Rotary Spirit Centre (RSC) in 2012, but those plans were shelved following the discovery of asbestos — a report from that year stated that 16 of 26 building-material samples tested positive for the substance.
In late 2018, the council of the day talked about demolishing the building and briefly considered renovating it for use as a warm-storage facility. But when faced with a $1 million price tag for that work, or $900,000 to simply bulldoze it, council put the issue on the backburner.
