Squamish's soccer enthusiasts who were hoping to see a construction zone on the Brennan Park all-weather fields in the next few months will likely be sorely disappointed, despite the recent allocation of $500,000 from the Sports Legacy Fund.
"I think it's highly unlikely that we could build a soccer field in the remaining dry months of 2011," said Mayor Gardner on Tuesday (June 28), referring to the Squamish Soccer Association's request to turf one of the all-weather fields.
The Squamish Soccer Association (SSA) put forward its proposal in time for the Legacy Fund application deadline in September, and the entire project would include turfing both all-weather fields to accommodate soccer and football and building a track, a kicking wall, bleachers and changing rooms.
SSA member Tanya Babuin, who has spent dozens of hours in council chambers over the past eight months, said the association wants to see the project completed this summer.
However, because the proposed field is on municipal land, she said "it's in district hands."
She visited district engineering manager Brian Barnett on Tuesday (June 28) and was told the district was in the process of hiring a consultant to decide whether the district would pursue a design-build or tender process for construction and installation of the field.
"We're hoping this whole consulting process goes really quickly so that we can get it moving forward because it would be so lovely to have it done now," she said.
"It's a three- to three and a half month project, so it's something that, if they started in a month, they could have it done by the end of October."
Babuin said she hopes the district will employ synthetic turf and design maintenance experts Doug Wournell and Glen Seeton, who both volunteered their time to help SSA design the proposed project.
"They've done an amazing amount of legwork with us for the past two years, all in goodwill, so we're hoping they'll be hired but obviously there's a process," she said.
During a presentation to council, Wournell said because the plan was already complete, "it would only take about two weeks to turn around."
But according to Gardner, until preconditions of release are set and council actually decides to go ahead with the project, it's not moving forward.
"The next step would be a council decision or consideration as to whether we would like to move forward with that project and if so, when," Gardner said.
"There are a number of factors into that. One is what the total cost of the project would be and another would be where all the money is coming from," he said.
"As far as I'm aware, right now there's $500,000 allocated from the Legacy Fund with the conditions of release for that coming back to council in July, and there is also $400,000 earmarked for that in our capital budget, which council could choose to spend this year or not."
He said the other factor is whether it's realistic to build a facility like that in the remaining months of 2011. Based on staff's comments, he said it would not be realistic.
"So that's where we're at," Gardner said. "No decision has been made about whether to build it or when you build it at this point in time.
"The money has been allocated to that soccer field. The reality is the soccer field costs two or three multiples of that amount of money, so the rest of that money will have to be sourced and a decision will have to be made to spend it."
Staff plans to bring preconditions of release for the Legacy Funds to council this month, he said.
