While there was much to celebrate at a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week for the much-anticipated West Vancouver Place for Sport, less trumpeted was the total bill of the project – which has ballooned by nearly $9 million over the past two years.
After a request for a breakdown of the project’s funding from the North Shore News, district council voted behind closed doors Monday evening to release the sum to the public, along with a list of the various sources that paid for the project.
The total cost to refurbish the track and field facility at West Vancouver Secondary is currently $17,750,000.
That’s paid for by $8 million from the provincial Growing Communities Fund, $7.36 million from the district, $1.27 million through community fundraising, $250,000 from West Vancouver Schools and $125,000 from the Canada Community-Building Fund.
The grand total includes an additional $750,000 from the district that’s been approved to renovate washrooms at West Vancouver Secondary, which will be available to the public for use after hours.
But one councillor said more discussions on how to pay for the expanded project should have happened publicly, especially on how the district chose to allocate the $8-million infrastructure grant from the province.
The need for a new artificial turf field in the district was identified in 2011, and fundraising efforts for the Place for Sport started in 2015.
After a new council was elected in 2022, the district expanded the scope of the project in January 2023 to include a wider track, washrooms and public viewing areas. Before that, the refurbish was estimated to cost $9.5 million.
Then in March 2023, the district received a one-time provincial grant along with other municipalities that could be used to pay for things like utilities, parks and recreational facilities.
At the time, District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little said the $10.25 million given to his municipality would go toward a long list of deferred infrastructure projects. North Vancouver City Mayor Linda Buchanan said it would take time and discussion among staff and council to decide how their $10.98-million grant would be spent.
Meanwhile, West Van Mayor Mark Sager said his district's $8-million grant had the Place for Sport “written all over it.”
“That’s the thing we’ve been pushing for,” he said at the time.
'It should have been on an agenda'
The decision to use all of the $8-million provincial grant on the track and field upgrade happened behind closed doors during an “in-camera” council meeting, Sager said in an interview on Tuesday.
“There’s no public consultation on that because the reason the province put the money up was because we committed to them that it would go to that infrastructure,” he said. “[The Place for Sport] ticked every box during the course of getting the funds out of the province.”
Sager acknowledged the district still would have gotten some of that money from the provincial government without advocating for the specific project.
“I don’t think we would have gotten as much money. It was because we tied it to the Place for Sport, and we lived up to our commitment to the province,” he said.
But Coun. Nora Gambioli said it was a mistake not to have that discussion publicly.
“In my opinion we did really screw up in not getting that information out to the public about the funding and where the money from the province went,” she said.
“Really it should have been on an agenda [for a public meeting],” Gambioli said. “It should have been a clear item with a report, and the mayor is responsible for creating the agenda.”
The district has faced challenges getting the Place for Sport over the finish line, she said.
“It’s been a long process. It’s been way tougher than expected,” Gambioli said, adding that it was a significant expense to upgrade the foundation underneath the facility.
“The good news is we’re almost there. The bad news is it’s really pricey and the district has to pay for it,” she said.
Sager said that discussions about the project happened behind closed doors so the contractor bidding process would remain competitive.
“Contracts are always negotiated in camera,” he said.
Once the contract was approved, council voted in October 2023 to release the amounts to the public, Sager said.
As the project broke ground in November 2023, the district divulged a $17.1-million project total. But the work on the bathrooms has since pushed the cost higher.
Sager said that will be the final amount as far as the district is concerned. However, there’s currently a new ask to raise money for better bleachers.
“There’s a real desire to build new bleachers, and we are out talking to people and hoping that members of the community may step forward and assist us in building new bleachers,” he said.
Overall, Sager said he’s very proud of the project.
“We’re really pleased with how well it’s gone,” he said. “And there was no suggestion here that we didn’t want the public to know [about the cost].”
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