WESTLOCK – With Jubilee Arena finally down and the site now clear of debris, Town of Westlock officials are gratified the repeatedly-delayed demolition project is done and are looking forward to next phase when the land will be converted to a parking lot.
Town CAO Simone Wiley said she’s especially relieved that the demo, delayed since September, is finally over as there’s been increased strain on the current parking lot following the installation of four ‘Jersey Barriers’ on the south side of the Rotary Spirit Centre (RSC) at the end of November to curb speeding around the site.
The demolition had initially been scheduled for the early fall as the municipality first identified the week of Sept. 12, then the weeks of Sept. 19 and Oct. 31, for the final phase of the projected $280,000 demolition as the interior had previously been stripped — the delay in early November came after crews found more asbestos that didn’t get picked up in the original report on the building.
Crews finally started the job Dec. 8 by tearing down one wall on the southwest side but discontinued work for the rest of the month due to sub -30 C temperatures. Following a Jan. 5 restart, crews made short work of the facility, which has been closed to the public since 2012, with the walls and roof down by Jan. 9.
Wiley said Feb. 8 that they’ve now done geotechnical testing on the ground and found there’s no permafrost “which is really good news because it won’t need to settle for as long.”
“We still have testing to do on the sand that’s there and whether we can use that as the parking lot base, plus we have our own stockpile of crushed concrete that we will also use for base with the intent that it’s paved this year for parking,” said Wiley.
“The magnitude of how much space is actually there without the building is significant. I don’t want to guess on the number of parking spots we’ll obtain from it, but it will be significant.”
Talk of levelling Jubilee Arena started in 2012 following the opening of the Rotary Spirit Centre (RSC), but those plans were shelved following the discovery of asbestos at the site — 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 bulldozing 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 just to bulldoze it, council put the issue on the backburner.
“I’ve been with the town for eight years and every year during capital budget discussions we’ve talked about Jubilee Arena coming down, so I’m very happy to see the project finally completed,” she said.
Wiley also noted they should be able to save the mature spruce trees that ringed the west and north sides of the arena and teased that the new space will provides opportunities solely beyond being just parking. Initially called the Westlock and District Jubilee Family Recreation Centre, Jubilee Arena officially opened July 13, 1963, and cost $75,744 to build. Meanwhile, the first hockey game at the facility was played Dec. 29, 1963, on natural ice as an ice plant wasn’t added until years later.
“Now when the ag fair is on, there’s a possibility of having food trucks there or things like that,” she added.
As for the final bill, Wiley said it’ll probably be more than $280,000 they anticipated, but still well below the $1 million they had estimated in the municipality’s 2022 capital budget.
“It’s going to take a little bit for all of the bills to come in and we also have some disposal fees so there’s still some invoicing there,” said Wiley. “We did have some increased costs throughout the process, but we’re still well under what we originally thought and it will be substantially less than the big, scary $1 million number we’ve been talking about for the last eight years, hence the hesitation to go ahead and do it in the first place.”
