No funding, no parking, no boards
More details on new indoor soccer complex
MAGALLY ZELAYA, STAFF
Construction of the university’s new indoor soccer complex is not yet underway, but key details about the $12.5-million plan announced last week are now available.
The announcement of the new facility, made on Sept. 17, did not make the arrangement clear in regards to who has ownership and operational control.
The Winnipeg Soccer Federation (WSF) will have primary operational control. The University of Manitoba will have ownership of the complex and will provide the land and lend its parking, but is not, in fact, funding the project.
“The $4-million contribution from the university is financing for us. We are paying them back on that,” said Keith Ferbers, chair of the WSF.
There is no fixed time frame in which the university will see that return on its investment. “It’s open-ended. From our perspective, we hope to pay it down as quickly as we can, whether through operation revenue, or fundraising, or a combination of the two.
“The lease is for a 40-year term plus renewal options that we have for another 10 years,” explained Ferbers.
Questions remained after the announcement regarding why the university had chosen this arrangement. According to Alan Sims, vice-president (administration), “It will engage the community into coming to the Fort Garry campus. Over the long term, that’s a lot of young children coming to amateur soccer programs that at some point will hopefully be making a decision about which university to go to and they will already be familiar with the University of Manitoba.”
Additionally, Sims listed the use of the facility at no cost by Mini-University, women’s soccer, and Bison football, when the WSF is not using it, as a reason for vying to have the facility on university land.
Early plans released in July 2006 had Laureate Inc. as the chosen construction company. They had been planning to fund up to $1.9 million, but they pulled out of the project last year. Bird Construction replaced Laureate, and has not made any indication that they plan to invest in the complex.
Construction is not officially underway yet. As project manager David Dulko explained, “We’re anticipating a start within the next couple of weeks, we’ve got a couple things to sort out . . . We’ll be designing until October and November.”
The new facility that is being designed “for approximately 1,000 people” will most likely not be in use until next fall as “we are committed to having it complete by Sept. 30, 2008,” said Dulko.
In regards to the increase in cost from $9.4 million to $12.5 million, Ferbers said it is due to increasing construction costs, specifically the cost of steel. “The increase is also in part of being able to now go with the clear span facility.”
The term “clear span” was not fully described during the announcement nor was the method in which the facility will be able to accommodate different-sized fields. Ferbers explained that the area will not have boards and would instead be divided by “big curtains that drop down from the ceiling [so] you can cut it in half or cut it into quarters.”
As for the originally planned 170 parking spots and a revamped outdoor turf, they are “not on the table anymore,” according to Ferbers.
The site for the new facility also moved from the east side of University Stadium to the west side. Ferbers said that had to do with capitalizing on the existing parking lot on the west side, the SD (toonie) lot.
In the event that large tournaments, the likes of which they hope to draw, were to take place, all parties involved have said that parking problems are unlikely. “ It’s a non-issue. In fact, it’s a perfect fit,” said Sims.
UMSU president Garry Sran expressed reservations about the project. “For the university to put much-needed funds, that need to be directed towards labs, into a soccer complex, that many students aren’t going to get a use out of — I think is very unfortunate.”
“This is another example of how the university uses money in these other projects and yet our education suffers and [they] try to blame the tuition fees freeze rather than their own misplaced priorities.”
Sims said that money is being put into labs and that the money for the facility is not coming from money designated for students. In fact, as part of the capital debt borrowed from the provincial government, “there is a small portion, about $10 million of the total $150 million, that goes to revenue producing objectives such as this.”
“What it comes down to is we get a $12.5-million indoor soccer field that we use during the off-peak hours for a cost of $4 million, that we recoup as a return on the investment through [the] lease to the soccer federation.”
As for using the facility as a means to draw potential students to the university in the long term, Sran said, “There’s better approaches.”
