Thunder Bay's proposed indoor turf facility: Where does it go from here?

The president of Soccer Northwest says he hopes Thunder Bay city council will decide to move forward with a proposed indoor turf facility in Chapples Park rather than delay it further.

The city announced earlier this month that Infrastructure Canada had rejected its application for $22 million from its Green and Inclusive Community Buildings program.

The city had previously put out a call for expressions of interest from potential private sector partners on the project, but it had shelved the proposals while waiting for word on the federal funds. 

"As soon as the city deals with these expressions of interest, we'll have literally done every single step twice," Michael Veneziale said. 

"We've already gone out for funding before; we've already gone out for expressions of interest before. We've gone for a permanent facility before. We've gone for a short-term facility before. So even in the minds of some of the councillors, you know, this is insane."

The city put out an initial call for expressions of interest from the non-profit and private sectors in 2018, but rejected the resulting proposals. 

A previous application for federal funding was rejected in 2020. 

"We have over 2,700 people playing soccer outdoor this year. And we're probably only going to be able to facilitate this year a third of them for indoor," Veneziale said. 

"We're going to continue to do what we always do and just get by in whatever way we can … We're cutting out entire teams … There'll probably be about 1,800 to 2,000 people that are wanting to play that won't be able to."

City staff are working "with a sense of urgency" to prepare recommendations for council on where to go from here, according to city manager Norm Gale. 

However, he was unable to provide a timeline for those recommendations.

The federal government did not provide feedback to the city on why its application was rejected, but the program was "highly competitive and oversubscribed," Gale said. 

The government did notify city staff that it intends to accept another round of applications for the program, should the city choose to take advantage of it, he added. 

'Not willing to put it on hold again'

But Coun. Mark Bentz said he would rather see council review the expressions of interest from the private sector in hopes of building the facility at a much lower price than the estimated $46 million the currently proposed building would cost when interest is factored in. 

"I'm not willing to put it on hold again," Bentz said. "I think that it's getting very frustrating for the community, these endless cycles of waiting for funding.

"These funding streams require the building to be much more than it was originally designed to be — it needs to be much more energy efficient — which raises its cost." 

Coun. Shelby Ch'ng said she was not holding her breath that there would be government funding for the project and she'd be happy to work with the private sector if a community partner had the capital to invest. 

"But if there is other government funding to be had, I think that we can wear both suspenders and a belt," she said. 

Veneziale said he believes there may be small amounts of funding available from other government sources, such as the provincial Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, but was doubtful about larger sums. 

"I'm just hoping [council] can come to an agreement and move it forward and also not be short-sighted in that decision," he said, emphasizing the city needs a full-size field that can be divided into four.

"I'm really hoping as a player, and as a taxpayer, they don't take a short-term solution that is going to cost X amount of millions of dollars and then immediately realize it's not going to meet the needs. And we still need to add millions of dollars after the fact."

Both Ch'ng and Bentz said they hope to be able to make decisions about next steps before the Oct. 24 municipal election.