Greater Sudbury can support an indoor domed soccer facility with two small soccer pitches, says a report headed to the community services committee next week.
Each soccer field would be about 200x200 feet, or about half the size of a FIFA-sized facility. There is demand for about 82 hours a week for indoor soccer, the report says. While each field can handle 60 hours, it's still recommended the two fields be built.
“If the facility is proposed as a permanent structure, a building that can house two small fields would be appropriate,” the report says. “There is, however, an economy of scale that is realized in construction, particularly if the facility is an air-supported dome installed over an existing artificial turf field.”
Former Ward 8 Coun. Fabio Belli, who died in April 2014, supported a multi-million dollar sports dome to be built at St. Charles College in the fall of 2012.
After delays, the project fell apart when soil conditions near the school increased its nearly $3-million price tag.
“Because of the soil condition they wanted us to remove six feet of top soil and put in another four to six feet of granular,” said Louis Kitevski, the project's developer. “It took budget of the project up by almost $800,000.”
In April, members of the operations committee were told three groups were now interested in the dome. One group is willing to pay the full $8 million to $10 million cost and build this summer, in exchange for leasing city land at Countryside and breaks on taxes and development charges.
That prompted next week's report, which puts in place a process to evaluate the proposals. At the April meeting, Catherine Matheson, the city's GM of community development, said no group is proposing building a dome without help from the city, which makes the process more complicated.
“If a partner was coming forward with something that had no ask from the city, we could bring that straight to council for consideration,” Matheson said. “The proposals we've been seeing, however, we don't have anything in writing that says completely zero cost to the city.”
With other groups also expressing interest, and looking for city support, she said staff need an “open and transparent” process to handle the proposals.
“There are competing interests in this, it's not just one party expressing interest,” Matheson said. “So know we're at the point where we need a process for this, how do we handle this?”
In addition to the soccer dome, the report also looked at arena usage in the city, concluding there is a surplus of 1.8 icepads in the city.
“Usage is greater for arenas in Sudbury compared to those in outlying areas (83 per cent versus 70 per cent in 2016/17),” the report said.
“Greater Sudbury’s arenas are approaching or beyond their functional life cycle, based on industry standards. Any future arena construction should be in the form of replacement facilities, with consideration to multi-pad designs.”
See the full report here.
