A staff report is recommending that council approve a design concept for the Fountain Street Soccer Complex.
The report, which is part of an upcoming council meeting agenda, outlines the scope and design options that council will look at. The option city staff support includes two synthetic, one synthetic dual-sport, and four natural fields, as well as a 6,500-square-foot service building.
The report further outlines that if this option is approved, the total cost will be about $9.5 million. The city will enter into an agreement with Conestoga College, which will pay $1.56 million for its requested upgrades. The requests from the college include upgrading one natural turf field to a synthetic turf field, installing higher-grade amenities on the one field, and upgrading finishes in the amenity building. This change is seen as an enhancement to the facility and increases facility rental capacity at no additional expense to the city. The concept design with these features is recommended option B.
Concept A shows a field configuration that does not factor in the contribution from Conestoga College. This concept consists of two synthetic turf soccer fields and five natural turf fields. Concept B, which includes the college's requirements, illustrates the preferred field configuration, consisting of two synthetic turf soccer fields, one synthetic turf dual-sport field, and four natural turf fields.
Both concept plans presented in the report propose a service building, which consists of two public washrooms, one universal washroom, four change rooms, two officials’ change rooms, multi-purpose space, city staff room, maintenance equipment storage, and mechanical/electrical rooms. The building will be constructed using shipping-container methodology and will be set at an elevation higher than the regional flood limit.
In addition, a second staff report related to the project requests that council approve substantial alterations to the heritage designated property municipally known as 880 Linden Dr. These alterations are required for the city to go ahead and build the soccer complex on the piece of land next to the river.
A heritage impact assessment, recommends that, where possible, soccer field development be designed to be reversible and that buffer zones, consisting of a 10-metre wide naturalized buffer between the riparian edges of the Grand River and the proposed development, should be established.
The meeting begins at 5 p.m. on Aug. 10 and will be streamed live via the city's YouTube channel.