City council is trying to think outside of the box on how to deal with its inventory of outdoor ice rinks and swimming pools.<\/p>\n
With demand for minor sports and recreation facilities surging<\/a> along with Edmonton\u2019s young population and most of the city\u2019s pools and single-sheet outdoor ice rinks more than a half-century old, Mayor Andrew Knack is wondering aloud if the city should see what ideas private organizations may have to keep the assets usable, before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the risk right now of not willing to be bold is we\u2019re going to end up losing a bunch of (ice sheets) in the next 10 years because frankly we don\u2019t have enough money for them,\u201d he said during a March 6 council meeting, noting that with voters demanding prioritizing snow removal, public safety and infrastructure renewal, recreation keeps being put on the backburner. \u201cWe\u2019re probably not going to go and repair a single sheet ice rink or modernize that because of how much they (cost.)<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how we\u2019re going to be able to appropriately fill in all the gaps unless suddenly the province reintroduces the 66 per cent (funding which was) cut, which won\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Council was informed March 25 the city has 31 ice sheets, 28 of which it owns and operates. An additional nine ice sheets within city limits are either part of one of the universities in town, or privately owned.<\/p>\n In comparison, Calgary has more than 50 ice sheets within its city limits, but only owns and operates 19 of them. The rest are privately owned.<\/p>\n Knack said he would like to see the city explore the idea of bringing more private partners<\/a> into the city\u2019s recreation facilities, noting the costs to repair facilities grows exponentially the longer repairs are put off to cover other non-negotiable expenses.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the alternative is we will hit a point where we hit a failure like we did with one of our pools, and we had no choice but to just close it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d rather us risk trying to do something and maybe not getting there, versus the risk of just these things falling off one by one.\u201d<\/p>\n After 65 years of operations, the city was forced to close Scona pool in 2022 as the building deteriorated to the point of being a legal liability for the city. At the time, repairs for the swimming pool were estimated at $6 million.<\/p>\n Closing the pool didn\u2019t save much because the pool was the training grounds for the Strathcona High School\u2019s swim team. At the time of closing the pool, council directed administration to help the team relocate to a new pool, including covering transportation costs.<\/p>\n Finding water to swim in is not much easier than finding ice to skate on \u2014 the city had more than 55,000 swimming lessons booked in 2025. Numbers for how many people use outdoor skating rinks are not available, but the city clocked more than 75,000 arena bookings last year.<\/p>\n A report<\/a> last November explored how the city could use private-public partnerships to fund amenities. Last year, the city put a stop<\/a> to putting private businesses on the names of new facilities, such as the Booster Juice Recreation Centre in Terwillegar. Knack mused there may be more the private sector can do to ensure Edmontonians can keep skating and swimming.<\/p>\n Private partners can range from businesses to non-profits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of aging buildings and at the same time we\u2019ve got community partners that have needs,\u201d he said. \u201cI would almost like to throw open the map of all the city land and all the aging city facilities, and put it out to community and say, \u2018Who\u2019s got ideas?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n ebowling@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City council is trying to think outside of the box on how to deal with its inventory of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3561,3557,52,3560,3563,3559,3562,3558],"class_list":{"0":"post-5960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-andrew-knack","9":"tag-city-of-edmonton","10":"tag-edmonton","11":"tag-greg-southam","12":"tag-ice-sheets","13":"tag-outdoor-ice-rinks","14":"tag-recreation-facilities","15":"tag-swimming-pools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}