City of Charlottetown to borrow $1.7M for Bell Aliant Centre upgrades

The city of Charlottetown is borrowing $1.7 million to complete upgrades at the Bell Aliant Centre.

At a virtual meeting Monday evening,council passed aresolution with a vote ofnine to one.

The cityplanned to repave the centre's parking lot this year, and replace its dehumidification system next year but due to the pandemic, and with it,the the facility's closure,it made sense to complete both upgrades now, saidCoun.Terry Bernard, chair ofthe city's finance committee.

"Obviously, it was serious enough for the general manager to get a hold of us and ask if this was a possibility," he said.

"This is funding that we would have had to pay for next year anyway, so we just moved it up a year."

When the city passed its capital budget in February, Bernard said expenditures for the Bell Aliant Centre hadn't been included, because it knew it would have to revisit itscapital asks for this facility.

He said the costof repaving the lotwill be $400,000 and replacing thedehumidification system will cost$1.3 million, with the project likely costing a total of $2 million.

The city will beresponsible for 87 per cent of the cost, with the University of Prince Edward Island and other stake holders planning to frontthe rest.

Coun. Bob Doiron was the only councillor to vote against the funding decision, asking to keep costs down.

He said he would have preferred if one of the renovation projects such as the repaving, be donenext year instead.

Bernard said it makes sense to do everything at oncewhilethe facility is already closed to the public.

However, he said he doesn'thave a date yet for when the upgradeswill be finished.

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