A community group has been formed to help identify and steer Salmon Arm towards the development of a new recreation facility.
With the recent announcement by the city that the SASCU Indoor Sports Complex will be demolished, Columbia Shuswap Selkirks swim coach Barry Healey said he's been hearing from residents concerned about the future of recreation in the community.
For several years, Healey has been wanting to form a group that would advocate on behalf of the numerous athletic clubs and other event organizers in the city. Last winter's closure of the sports complex, originally the Memorial Arena, for structural concerns played a part in the formation of the Shuswap Community Sports and Leisure Society (SCSLS), which will now focus on what that new recreation facility might look like, and where it might go.
"We’ve got to the point where we have to go… we can't wait for somebody to take care of it," said Healey, noting word of the arena's impending demolition has put a spotlight on the local recreation needs.
Healey said the SCSLS will focus on: educating the community about the urgent need for a state-of-the-art sports and leisure complex; promoting the social and economic benefits the complex would bring; engaging community stakeholders in creating an inclusive vision of a new sports and leisure complex; fundraising for the complex and advocating for its construction – all to improve the long-term health, safety and quality of life in the community.
"We have to work together, we need a sports council to give guidance, we need a sports council to raise money, and our goal is to become a charity," said Healey. "I’m hoping by early 2025 we can start giving tax receipts for people who make donations."
Healey said the SCSLS will be making a presentation to the city council in October, with goals of opening communication and possibly pushing for a referendum ahead of the 2025 federal election.
"I don’t want to go to referendum, but that’s the way I’m sure they’re going to go…," said Healey of funding a new sports and leisure facility. "From our point, if we’re not in on 2025 and the federal election when all the big money goes out, you’re not there at all, you have to wait another four years."
Healey noted that prior to the news of the arena, the community had already identified a need to upgrade the SASCU Recreation Centre, particularly the pool. In 2019, the city and the Shuswap Recreation Society hosted an open house where the public had an opportunity to look at two possible replacement options. One, estimated at that time to cost $35.7 million, involved a four-phase project that would include renovating and expanding the existing pool, a new multi-purpose gymnasium, converting the multi-purpose auditorium into a dedicated performing arts space and a new fitness centre. The second option, estimated at $47 million, involved constructing a new pool and fitness centre, converting the existing pool into a gym and multi-purpose facility, and converting the auditorium into a dedicated performing arts space.
The company hired to come up with designs for the possible future recreation facilities found there was still life left in the existing building and its system. However, council was told about $4.2 million in upgrades would be needed, $3.2 million of that in the next five years.
In a June 2024 Council Report column that ran in the Observer, Mayor Alan Harrison said retrofitting the recreation centre, including a new aquatic centre, is the city's highest priority recreational need.
"Following behind the sewage plant upgrade, this retrofit is in our medium priority projects in our strategic plan," said Harrison. "To complete this project, we will need contributions from the regional district areas, whose residents also enjoy these facilities."
Healey insists the community and its numerous sports and leisure clubs/groups need the approach offered by the SCSLS.
"There's no plan, there’s no communication, the clubs are left on their own, 99 per cent of the clubs are all run by volunteers," said Healey. "For the community, it’s massive business. If we pulled all the money in, how much is spent, and all those events we do every weekend in the community, it would be in the millions, and it is in the millions. And if we had the right facilities, we could actually say, let’s bid for this camp, let’s bid for that camp, we could bring those guys in.
"It’s massive business… That’s one of the best ways of saying to the community to vote for this because this is what it’s going to give you back. But you have to show them the figures."
