A day after the bruising and divisive arena debate was decided, city council reaffirmed its support for another big project, the $63 million Synergy Centre.
In fact, councillors asked the proponents if they could speed up the process and come back with another update before the end of the year.
The Greater Sudbury Synergy Centre is proposing to be a state-of-the-art public meeting and performance facility that can be used for conference plenaries and banquets, and would also include a 950 seat community auditorium.
The secondary focus of providing a larger scale arts and cultural live performance community auditorium gives the venue a unique positioning in the market.
City council allocated $187,500 to undertake a site evaluation and selection process on Wednesday, as well as to finalize a detailed business plan, operation model, conceptual design and financial plan for the centre.
That comes a day after they voted to build a new arena/events centre on The Kingsway, which likely will be twinned with the new casino Gateway plans on building in the city.
When originally announced a couple of years ago, having a new arena downtown was considered key to the centre's business plan.
John Caruso, chair of the Synergy Centre steering committee, said he was happy that councillors were still backing the project.
"I'm really relieved,” he said. “We've always seen this project as a game changer for downtown. We always believed that if there was an events centre that they would compliment each other, but one wasn't dependent on the other.
"Now that the arena is going to The Kingsway, it makes this project even more important for the downtown."
While the arena would have helped the bottom line, Caruso said the Synergy Centre itself is expected to be used as many as 325 days a year, compared to about 80 for the arena.
"Those are delegates staying at hotels, eating in restaurants, going for entertainment at night,” Caruso said. “It's going to have a bigger impact on the downtown economically than the events centre would have."
Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier said psychologically, after the emotional arena decision, it was important to let downtown supporters know they still had support of council.
“The message we need to send ... is that we're prepared to step up, that we believe in our future,” Cormier said. “And I think we're doing it cautious, prudently, keeping an eye on the bottom line.”
Laurentian University President Dominic Giroux, who is also on the steering committee, said the centre would fill a void in Sudbury. For example, major conferences for the medical school have to be held in Thunder Bay because facilities here don't exist.
“Our city needs and deserves a large conference centre in the downtown core,” Giroux said. “The Synergy Project would lift all boats.”
Wendy Watson, another member, said Sudbury would be able to attract a different calibre of performances at the centre, and would bring economic development.
“That is new money flowing in to our city,” she said. “It's importance to downtown and the downtown master plan cannot be overstated.”
“This is the kind of thing that could really spark development downtown,” said Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan.
Kirwan wanted to know whether the next step in the process could be accelerated. The committee is looking to pick a site, explore partnerships and funding from other levels of government. The goal is to have each level of government provide one-third of the cost, or about $21 million each.
Caruso said after a couple of years of waiting, he likes the idea of picking up the pace.
"You'd almost think they were reading my mind,” he said.
“I've been pushing at the table to move this faster. I'm a little concerned that the window for infrastructure money from the federal and provincial governments is at some point going to close. So we need to get on with it."
Unlike the arena, Caruso said there is government infrastructure money available for the centre.
"This project is totally eligible. We envisage a capital campaign, we believe there are philanthropists in this community that will get behind a performing arts space."
