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By Angela Brown

More recreation options

City awards contract for new outdoor rink

Feb 14, 2024 | 1:46 PM

North Battleford city council approved a contract for the construction of a new outdoor rink at this week’s meeting.

Council accepted administration’s recommendation to award the Outdoor Rink Dasher Board project to Omni Sport Inc. for $116,303 including $6,583 PST to build the rink structure.

The city’s 2024 capital project budget allocated $175,000 in total for the rink project. The remaining amount of about $58,000 will be used for the city’s costs for the rest of the work – to install the exterior light poles and lighting, the asphalt pad, and cover the materials and labour fees to complete the project.

City Parks and Recreation Director Cheryl DeNeire said the outdoor rink will be located between the skateboard park and the tennis court, near the back of the Access Communications Centre arena.

Administration noted the outdoor rink facility will be 120 x 60 feet in size, with official line markings, two access gates, and six-foot puck containment fencing. The rink will be installed on an asphalt pad. The city will also look at possibly adding players’ benches and year-round use for basketball and ball hockey.

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Mayor David Gillan noted everyone seems to want the same popular times to book ice at the existing indoor facilities, so creating a new outdoor rink might alleviate some of this problem. The aim is for the outdoor rink to be for recreational use, on a first come, first served basis, rather than through booked ice time.

“Hopefully, it can be used in the summer time as well, not just the winter,” Gillan said. “That’s something we’re going to experiment with, year by year. There are some organizations for the summer-time that hopefully can use it as well, because we want year-round recreation.”

Administration noted Omni Sport Inc. outperformed the other bids the city received, scoring the highest collective points with a detailed project budget, and a project timeline of seven weeks. Their proposal was based on the recommended use of higher impact and galvanized materials, with a lifespan rating of 85 years.

The best bid came in 29.5 points higher in the rating system than the next highest scoring contender.

“We hope that this will be up at the latest next winter or maybe a little bit earlier than that,” Gillan said. “We have to coordinate the asphalt [installation]. We’re doing that with our general contracting to get the best price.”

The city may also look at the option of receiving proposals from parties interested in helping sponsor the project for naming rights or for board advertisement in the future as a possibility.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW