Civic Center Project Lagging

I'm sure it doesn't surprise many to hear the Civic Center expansion and renovation project is beginning to fall behind schedule.


In anticipation of that, the Broncos scheduled their first eight games on the road with their home opener set for October 12th vs Edmonton.


I recently had a chat with the very willing Dean Robson - the City of Swift Current Parks and Recreation Manager. He's always been more than accommodating and has answered all questions honestly.

Here's a brief recap of that conversation....

JK: Summer continues on and so does the Civic Center project, where's the project at? It looks like there is a lot of work to be done.

Dean Robson: There is a lot of work to be done, we still have about a 1/3 of the project to go. I believe we said from the start we expected the project to be complete by Christmas time of '07, that's still well within reach and on track.

The east end, the end that hasn't moved for three weeks, we had a little problem with the steel trusses. They were delayed and didn't get in. It's about 10 days behind but once again the entire project is still slated to be done by Christmas.


JK: As hockey season opens up, a lot of people wondering about that October 12th home opener...

Dean Robson: We're shooting for having the ice in, it's a full new system and we'll have to tweak that. Refrigeration for us is the main thing. In regards to seating and boxes and washrooms on the far end, there's no guarantees that will be done at that time. Once again we said Christmas for the entire project and I guess some people figured that once Bronco season started that everything would be done accept for areas that would concern everyone else. It's construction and there's no guarantees. People can expect ice, and the existing seats from the facility but a lot of the east end new concessions and washrooms probably will not be ready. We'll get there eventually.


JK: Is there a plan "B" at all if the facility isn't ready for hockey October 12th?

Dean Robson: Well, I don't know if there's a plan "B", we expect things to be up and running. If were 10 days away and we recognized something and all of sudden something wasn't working

then we'd go to a Plan "B". We expect to be running and we expect not to have too many problems.


JK: Every one's asking about it in the community, it seems everyone is interested in it...

Dean Robson: That's awesome, the community should be and we are too. We've really been pushing our contractors and they are going to start working six or seven days a week in certain areas to try and speed things up. We had some problems with the wind, it's pretty tough to put up trusses in strong winds.

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Indians and the Regina Red Sox meet in a deciding game five tonight at Mitchell Field. Last night Regina held on for the 2-1 win in what was the best game of the series.

The pitchers duel lasted all night long as the Tribe threatened in both the 8th and the 9th inning but could not plate the tying run.

7:05pm Mitchell Field.... should be a great game!

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