Regina city council approves federal funding application for new aquatics centre

Regina city council has taken another big step forward when it comes to getting funding for a new aquatics centre and geothermal heating facility.

On Wednesday, council unanimously approved a motion to submit an application to the federal government for $128 million in Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) funding.

Of the total, $108 million would be put towards the new aquatics centre, while the other $20 million would go towards the geothermal facility.

With the application being submitted, council will now have to play the waiting game for when it comes to getting the funding.

Mayor Sandra Masters suggested that could take over a year, but she’s hopeful the city will get the green light soon so it can move ahead.

“The federal government has something like 12 to 18 months to approve (the funding), but I would suggest the federal government would like to get the money out the door or at least give us the nod to proceed,” explained Masters. “They know projects like this take a lot of pre-planning and they’re interested in construction just like we are.”

With the project hopefully moving into the next steps, Masters said it finally feels like the city is starting to make progress when it comes to getting the aquatics centre built.

“There’s been a feasibility study, Phase 1 and 2 environmental (studies) done on the sites and really being thoughtful about what the outside of it looks like as well as that connection into the Fieldhouse,” she said. “If we can proceed with this, it positions us really well in terms of continuing to not just serve our community, but to also host events here as well for some of our competitive teams.”

At the Wednesday meeting, council also learned more about what the geothermal facility would do.

Masters said the geothermal plant being built would help save the city money and make the facility environmentally friendly.

“I’m super-excited about the geothermal. It’s one of those things that makes it unique; there’s longevity to it,” Masters added. “For the life of this aquatics centre, we’ll have a heat source that will save us in GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions as well as a massive amount of savings in heating costs.”

If the new pool is built, the current Lawson Aquatic Centre pool would have to be decommissioned within five years of the new pool being built. That would be part of the agreement with the federal government when it comes to getting new funding.

The city will now have to wait and hear from Ottawa to see if it gets the funding.

If it gets the funding, Masters says the city will have to have another vote to approve the funding model.

“We’ve already approved in the 2022 budget the feasibility funding; there’s $3.2 million and a portion of that still left,” she said. “There’s another $16 million that has been set aside. Over the last number of years, we’ve been adding 0.5 to the mill rate to build up recreational infrastructure replacement within the existing mill rate. Then there will be a portion of this we’ll have to borrow.”

The anticipated cost for the projects is $172 million.

Over the coming months, Masters says the city will continue to be transparent with residents about the planning of the aquatics centre and also will continue engaging with the community about what the facility should look like.