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Sault Ste. Marie Sports and Event Centre |
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Darren Taylor - LTVNews.com - Thursday, May 19 2005, 6:30 pm |
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City Council made its pick at a special meeting Thursday night as to who will build the new Sault Ste. Marie Sports and Entertainment Centre.
With two City Councillors (David Celetti and Lou Turco) absent, Council voted 10-1 in favour of a Southern Ontario contractor to build the new complex. Mayor John Rowswell was in favour—only veteran councillor Frank Manzo voted against.
Toronto-based Bondfield Construction got the nod to build the new facility, at a cost of 21 million, 965-thousand dollars. Speaking to LTV NEWS after the vote, Chief Administrative Officer Joe Fratesi said Bondfield is an excellent choice, as that company’s tender allowed for the greatest amount of Sault construction materials and labour on the Centre.
“The steel is going to be Algoma’s, Tenaris is a new corporate citizen, a very important one, both Algoma and Tenaris have made donations and I don’t think Council could have passed over the opportunity to use their products in the building…While Bondfield is not local, certainly many of the sub-trades are local so this project is going to put a lot of local people to work.”
As for saving the existing Memorial Gardens Tower, Fratesi says “it looks like there is a community will to save that Tower, they are doing assessments to make sure that is physically possible once they cut away the main building, there’s lots of talk in the community for corporate support for saving the Tower…where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Fratesi also assured Council the 21 million, 965-thousand dollar pricetag will not go up, saying the contract price with Bondfield is a fixed price.
Council was also told the Sault Greyhounds signed a letter of intent Thursday to make the new arena their home for at least 15 years, perhaps for as long as 20 years. |
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