When the prospect of a digital wolf to replace the wolf on a wire was raised at council chambers tonight, members immediately erupted in opposition.
“We prefer the real thing,” Mayor Paul Lefebvre clarified to a scattering of applause and laughter from those who gathered for tonight’s city council meeting.
The meeting saw Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects partner Chris O’Reilly update members on the $200-million event centre project.
O’Reilly's presentation was Part 2 of the morning’s unveiling of architectural renderings of the project, which the city hosted at the future event centre property on a vacant lot off the east side of Minto Street, adjacent to the more than 70-year-old Sudbury Community Arena it will replace.
While the morning’s presentation offered the public fresh visual representations of the event centre project, the evening’s city council meeting dug deeper into specifics.
In addition to maintaining the wolf on a wire (a taxidermied wolf strung out on a clothesline when the Sudbury Wolves hockey team scores a goal, which O’Reilly said was the No. 1 thing that came up during stakeholder meetings and was included in an artistic rendering of the event centre), O’Reilly walked members through the proposed building.
(Images of O’Reilly’s presentation, including various renderings, are available by clicking here.)
O’Reilly’s first point of clarification was that, although the building will serve as a new main arena for Greater Sudbury, buildings such as this aren’t necessarily called arenas anymore.
“They’re very sophisticated buildings that handle much more than sports,” he said.
“We like to consider them large community centres that attract more people from your community and across the region from more diverse backgrounds and ethnicities, and they’re also huge catalysts for development based on all the work that we’ve been doing across North America and the world.”
The building is an “at-grade facility,” he clarified, which allows crews easy access to the event space from street level from a back-of-house area at the south side of the building. From this space, trucks can offload equipment directly onto the event centre floor, which O’Reilly said will serve as a significant incentive for promoters to add Sudbury tour stops to their schedules.
“If you have an efficient building with all the capability of the modern buildings in larger cities, promoters want to come,” he said, describing the back-of-house area as “the ultimate in efficiency.”
Enclosed by Minto Street to the west, Brady Street north, Shaughnessy Street east and Van Horne Street south, the event centre’s main entrance will be at its west side, with another entrance at its northwest corner.
Along Brady Street, he said, “We’ve set the entire building back and elevated a little bit from the street, just for acoustic reasons and to elevate the crowd from the traffic.”
As O’Reilly also noted during the morning’s architectural renderings unveiling, the building's exterior includes rounded corners as a means of representing the natural world.
The building, he explained, is “more of a dynamic form, which is, in a way, emblematic of what’s happening inside the building, with all the athletics and live entertainment and excitement that’s going on inside.”
Clad in nickel-coloured metal to represent area industry and counterbalanced with a softer wood colouration, the exterior represents both worlds.
Once inside, patrons walk into a large open concourse area, “quite generous compared to what you might be used to now in your current building,” O’Reilly said. The ceilings through this area are 18 feet high, wrapped in glass. Washrooms and concessions are available throughout.
Space for the Sudbury Wolves and other locker rooms are along the east side, and the back-of-house loading area is along the south.
Administrative offices are a half-floor above, along the east side of the building, the second level includes another concourse, while the third level will host 24 suites and 10 loge seat sections (premium viewing areas; smaller versions of suites) in a horseshoe shape whose break is along the south side where the main stage would be set up during concerts.
The facility will include enhanced accessibility features, including double elevators at both main entrances and the possibility of escalators to reach the upper levels.
The escalator question remains unanswered, O’Reilly said, as they weren’t factored into the project’s $200-million approved budget. “Ideally, we’d like those to fit within the budget,” he said, noting that if not, they’d at the very least make it easy for the city to plug them in one day.
Walking city council through a number of event centre setups, O’Reilly noted that its capacity for hockey games would be approximately 5,800, end-stage concert setup is 5,500, centre-stage is 7,200, and basketball is 6,200. There’s also an option to block off a swath of the space with curtains to create a more intimate theatre setup for 2,000 people.
Complete with the latest technology, O’Reielly said, “It’s going to be the best of the best.”
O'Reilly also clarified during Tuesday’s city council meeting that he is “confident at this stage that we can meet our budget” of $200 million.
During tonight’s meeting, Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh asked the project team to look into adding inside bicycle parking (or outside, with a roof), and it was noted that the centre’s placeholder name, the Greater Sudbury Event Centre, would remain until a sponsor secures naming rights.
In the coming weeks, city Strategic Projects lead Tony Cecutti said the public can expect to see fencing installed around the property and utilities relocated to make way for the building. Foundation work will begin early in the new year, and Cecutti said, “Certainly, by this time next year you’ll start to see the steel erection forming."
A parking study will be released early in the new year, though Cecutti clarified that the event centre is using a dispersed parking model wherein people park throughout the downtown area and walk to the arena.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.