MEADOW LAKE — The City of Meadow Lake has announced the awarding of a design-build contract for a new Multiplex facility to Quorex Construction Services Ltd.
The project will be completed by Quorex with Workun Garrick Partnership as their design partner. Other specialists and firms are working as part of this design-build team to give the Meadow Lake area the best possible end product, the city states in a press release.
Construction on the project is expected to begin later this year. When complete, the new facility will house an NHL-size arena, an administration core and a field house.
In the fall of 2022, the City received confirmation of investments from the Government of Canada (up to $14,932,023) and the Government of Saskatchewan (up to $12,442,108) to help us build the new facility. The total investment under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) including the City’s portion under the grant, is $37.3 million.
“… when this new Multiplex opens, it will stand as a testament to the resiliency, hard work and co-operation of everyone in the Meadow Lake area – and will strengthen heart of all of the communities who call this special part of Saskatchewan home.,” said Jeremy Harrison, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Trade and Export Development and MLA for Meadow Lake.
The city is responsible for funding the remainder of the project. The bulk of the city’s funding is expected to come from the insurance proceeds following a fire in 2021 at the previous Meadow Lake and District Arena. City council committed an additional $5 million when applying for ICIP funding, and another $9.5 million on May 8. The total budget for this project is now $51.83 million.
Council is considering various options when it comes to funding the remainder of this project. Now with the support of the Rural Municipality (RM) of Meadow Lake No. 588, that job is a little easier.
“We are working hard to source the funding that we’ve now committed to include the field house portion. The RM has generously committed to support the addition of the field house to the project in the amount of $2,379,020 and we couldn’t be more thankful for their support. That means the city will now just need to source $7,620,980 to build the field house. That certainly seems more doable than a whole $9.5 million,” said Meadow Lake Mayor Merlin Seymour.
When it comes to the regional impact of such a project, the RM of Meadow Lake felt their support was important.
“We unanimously agreed to offer the funding in support of adding the field house to this project,” said Acting RM of Meadow Lake Reeve Dale Sheppard. “A field house would be a real benefit to residents across the region. The RM has always supported recreation provided by the city and this is just an extension of that support. We still have details to work out and negotiate on how that will work, but we hope to have an official funding agreement signed with the city soon.”
The project team is investigating opportunities to incorporate event centre programming and functionality within the proposed design solution.
“We’re pretty excited to get things moving on this project with Quorex and Workun Garrick,” said City of Meadow Lake Parks and Recreation Manager Regan Beck.
“As far as I see it, they were the company that really understood what the city needed, took the city’s feedback to heart throughout the process, and provided the best value for dollar in their proposal. I think their proposed design really hit the mark. While the project might look a little different than originally intended, we really do think we are getting the best possible value for our dollar with Quorex. We do have plans to move forward adding the field house and there is some potential for some kind of event space as well.”
