SAULT STE. MARIE -- The city of Sault Ste. Marie has been left wondering how it's going to fund its proposed twin pad arena, now that provincial funding has been rejected.
The $25-million project was set to replace the aging McMeeken Centre, but council will now have to look for money elsewhere to fund it.
"We're disappointed by the news, you know, staff's done a great job at keeping the McMeeken open so we'll do what we can to get it up and running this year," said Tom Vair, Deputy CAO.
"We can't feasibly afford to fund the entirety of the project, so we're currently evaluating all of our options."
The proposal would've seen the city pay just over $6-million of the total $25-million, according to Vair.
"From what we were told, it's just that proposals right across the province were overcrowded this year and that we just didn't make the final cut," he added.
One user group of the McMeeken that's been left disappointed, is the Sault Ringette Club.
"The McMeeken represents forty percent, a little bit over forty percent of our total ice capacity, so it is an important part of our overall program," said Bruce Graham, club president.
"We're hopeful that we'll still see a new arena in the Sault sometime soon to replace this place."
Graham says the club has seen lots of growth recently, but worries the rejection could halt that in its tracks.
"We certainly weren't happy to hear that the nice, shiny new arena isn't going to go off without a hitch," he said.
"That being said, we trust in the city's ability to get this arena open quickly for us to use this year."
That's also the plan, according to Vair.
"We'd like to get it open, since right now, we have only the John Rhodes available for user groups in the city," he said.
"Of course, the challenge becomes how do we do that with as little as funding as possible?"
Vair adds city staffers will present council with other funding options at it's next meeting on September 14.
