The City of Grande Prairie is seeking public input on what residents would like to see done as part of a proposed full-scale renovation of Revolution Place. As an initial step to the renovation process, city staff is recommending the launch of a public awareness and education campaign.
According to Senior Executive Advisor Candace Bilodeau, the campaign would run from Aug. 17, 2020, until Sept 4, 2020, consisting mainly of high-visibility and high awareness material posted throughout the local community as well as online.
In previous council meetings, city council had discussed the possibility of beginning renovation projects on Revolution Place during the downtime caused by COVID-19. To date, though roughly $544,000 has been designated for renovations, none have yet been started.
Suggested small scale renovations included upgrading the speed of service within the lobby and centre gate concessions, as well as addressing accessibility issues at the box office and reception desk.
Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given says the delay is a contingency to prevent unnecessary spending.
“Those small projects haven’t started because administration is doing their due diligence to make sure that they don’t do anything that would have a throwaway cost if Council decided to go ahead with a larger project,” he says.
“It looked like it would be prior to budget that [the] public input process would be concluded— it won’t surprise me if this ends up being something that council does discuss at budget time.”
The full-scale renovation plan for Revolution Place would see, among a host of upgrades, the arena upgraded to 5,000 seats, enhanced conferencing capability on the Bowes side, and an upgraded loading dock added to the facility.