McCulley-Robertson could be home to six million dollar recreation centre within five years

Huntsville could have a new six million dollar recreation centre ready for operation in five years.

It would be located at McCulley-Robertson Recreation Park in one of three identified sites, and is slated to include six sheets of ice for curling and a lounge designed to accommodate 200 people. It would also include a gymnasium and fitness room.

This week an updated feasibility study was outlined to a crowd of about 50 people at the Active Living Centre in Huntsville. Presenter Mark Inglis of York Urbanist told the audience they are two-thirds of the way through the process of planning the new facility and seeing it come to fruition.

It will be a multi-purpose, multi-use facility that will be all inclusive and will be designed to be flexible in the way it serves the municipality.

Partners in the project include the Huntsville Curling Club, Huntsville High School, Muskoka Hornets Baseball Association, Huntsville Soccer Club, Huntsville Hurricanes Basketball Association, and the Town of Huntsville.

“The success of the proposed business plan will be premised on the enthusiasm of the sports organizations,” said Inglis. “I think that a multi-use recreation facility can be a reality, if those organizations approach the project with good business practices. The evidence is there that they can. The curling club has shown that they can grow their membership, about 10 per cent per year recently. This growth and their enthusiasm could translate into a new six-sheet curling facility in five years.”

Stakeholder groups have been supportive of the project. “The Huntsville Hurricanes Basketball Association has been very supportive at recent stakeholder meetings, as they are currently limited by the availability of court time. They have made recommendations about the gymnasium size,” said Inglis. “The Huntsville Soccer Club has been influential in the site selection. They are eager to have a facility to call their clubhouse or base of operations.”

Inglis also told the audience it is important that there be a 10-year business plan that includes marketing, partnerships and goal setting.

Mike Holten explained the current design of how the Recreation Centre might look. In addition to the curling ice and the gymnasium there are plans for a fitness area for users of the building, meeting spaces, a raised viewing area over the sheets of ice, public washrooms, and club storage for soccer and baseball with accessibility from the outside.

The design of the public change rooms has not been finalized and Holten said they are looking at a couple of options. One would be unisex and the other more standard male, female and family designations.

Much of the design concept has been the result of investigations of other centres trying to find what has worked best. That process is also continuing.

John Furner, President of the Huntsville Curling Club

John Furner, president of the Huntsville Curling Club said he was impressed with the turnout and the positive nature of the discussion.

“It’s very warming to know these people are on board from the curling club,” he said, “and the community is interested, the Town is interested, the partners are interested, so now let’s make it go. There are questions still about the design. How are we going to fit everything in and make everything flow? We don’t know that yet. We just have the bubbles on the design in front of us, but they can be moved around.”

The next step is to meet again with the stakeholders and further modify the plans. Those changes or updates will be brought back to the next public meeting in June.

See a PDF of the presentation here.

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