City of Brantford Council unanimously showed its support for a $20 million pre-engineered steel indoor sports facility during its Committee of the Whole Operations meeting on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.
During a City Council meeting on April 25, 2023, councillors directed staff to explore the potential of a new indoor facility partnership with the Brantford City Soccer Club and Brantford Minor Baseball Association.
Since then, staff has explored multiple locations with the associations and the most suitable location was determined to be the vacant field next to Earl Haig Family Fun Park at 101 Market St. South. The space can accommodate between 70,000 to 100,000 sq ft. and the site already has existing parking.
The location is city-owned land and the majority of the $20 million cost will be related to the design and construction of the building. The City is currently looking to pursue partnerships through both federal and provincial grants (approximately $10 million from each) to help fund the entirety of the project.
If the City successfully obtains the funding needed, it will proceed with the design and construction of the building, however, if it’s only able to secure one funding source or neither, City staff will report back with alternate options and explore other financial partnership opportunities.
As of right now, there is no facility that is suitably equipped to support indoor sports year-round and the hope is that by building one it would not only support the two organizations but that it would also be used for recreational leagues for community soccer groups, flag football, frisbee sports, camps, special events, and sports tournaments.
During the October 1 meeting, representatives from both the Brantford City Soccer Club and Brantford Minor Baseball Association were on site to speak to the proposal.
Both Randy Meggs, president of Brantford Minor Baseball, and Scott Coleman, operations manager for Brantford City Soccer Club, made comments about local athletes currently having to leave the city in order to practice their sport year round.
“Many of you may not be aware that baseball, along with many other sports in this country, has evolved. Years and years ago, when I was young, you played your sport for your season and that was it. Now we’re getting pushed into scenarios where we have parents and players who want all year round training and it’s getting very, very difficult to find any training venues,” said Meggs. “…We try to keep the sport as inexpensive as possible and we are competitive, but we’re losing kids. Parents are taking their kids elsewhere and we’re having a tougher time keeping them in Brantford. We still charge a lot less than any other cities do, but they [parents and kids] see the fact that the other places have a sports facility and they’re training all year round.”
Coleman said that while the volunteers and staff of Brantford City Soccer Club work hard to ensure that everyone in the community has a chance to participate year round and to develop to the best of their abilities, the lack of an indoor sports facility is a major constraint.
Noting that the City boasts high quality, well-maintained, artificial and outdoor grass sports fields for the outdoor portion of the calendar year, Coleman said that without the ability to use corresponding and appropriate indoor training space, local non-profit sports organizations and local athletes are heavily disadvantaged.
“Brantford is the sole community whose citizens do not have local access to an indoor soccer or multi-sports facility. Additionally, many communities smaller than Brantford have facilities, including Woodstock, Welland and Sault Ste. Marie to name a few,” he said. “As a result of this lack of facility space in Brantford, the Brantford City Soccer Club must look outside the municipality for indoor facility space for our competitive level athletes to train in to minimize the comparative disadvantage of this missing infrastructure locally.”
He said while the soccer club has tried to book other facilities like Paris’ Syl Apps Community Centre, it’s been unable to secure any time.
Later on, Councillor Richard Carpenter commended the two associations for their work and hopes that with their assistance, the City can move towards truly becoming the Tournament Capital of Ontario.
“We might call ourselves the Tournament Capital, but we’ve lagged quite a bit behind,” said Carpenter. “…This will go a long way for our community and it will show the community that we really care about minor sports.”
Councillor Gino Caputo said that with the influx of families coming into the City who are wondering why there isn’t already a place to train indoors, the proposal should have come to council two years ago.
“We now have an opportunity to get ourselves into the big leagues with the other cities and to grow and to start doing things that make Brantford the place that people want to be,” he said.
Councillor John Sless said that he was happy to see the proposal brought forward, noting that this was something they’ve tried to do for years.
“We’ve tried so many times in the past and just can’t seem to get off the ground, and we’re finally getting it off the ground,” he said. “That, in and of itself, for me, makes this whole term worthwhile.”
He asked Inderjit Hans, Commissioner of Public Works, when staff would be submitting the grant applications and when they would hear back and Hans said that they would be submitting the applications as soon as possible and that they should hear back by the end of the year. He said if all goes well with the grants, more specifically the provincial Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund, the facility would be required to be built by 2027.
A short while later, Councillor Many Samwell, who supported the addition of an indoor facility, moved an amendment to add the following clauses:
“D. THAT Council APPROVE the vacant greenspace adjacent to Earl Haig Family Fun Park to be the site for the Indoor Sport Facility; and
E. THAT staff BE DIRECTED to investigate the enhancement of Earl Haig Family Fun Park including maximizing greenspace, amenities and community garden space and REPORT BACK to Council with options.”
“I know that this facility is greatly needed in our community, and I was very happy to see that in the report, it also talks about investing in Earl Haig, because that’s really important to our community as well,” she said. “What this amendment is doing is really just taking what’s in the report and just making sure that we’re approving that today, including making sure that we’re keeping some green space on the spot for some community gardens for the surrounding neighbourhood.”
Several councillors, including Mayor Kevin Davis, expressed their concerns over clause E and called for the two to be voted on separately.
“With all due respect, I won’t vote for this… Earl Haig Park can’t be all things to all people,” he said. “You’ve got to be focused on what it is you want to do here and so to try and shoehorn this in and continue to have gardens in there, which takes up a lot of space and will likely compromise on parking, you’re going to compromise on the indoor sports centre, which clearly is the priority. … I just don’t see how you fit it all in.”
After councillors went back and forth discussing the topic, Samwell said that Earl Haig should in fact be all things to all people.
“If it’s going to be a City facility, a community garden that takes up a little piece of grass is not going to hurt anybody,” she said. “That’s like saying ‘we’re going to have this great sports facility there, but don’t put in a little free library in front of it because people don’t want to read while they’re waiting.’ It’s important to look at what it could be for everyone, and I don’t think that this is taking anything away from that.”
The vote on clause D was then carried on a vote of 10 -1, and clause E later lost on a vote of 4 – 6 noting that Councillor Michael Sullivan was not present at the time.
Before calling for the final vote on the resolution, as amended, Councillor Dan McCreary took the opportunity to speak to it.
“This reminds me an awful lot of that vote where we decided to apply for the government funding for the Gretzky Centre many, many years ago and that began a process that provided something pretty doggone good for this community and for sports here in this community,” he said. “Now we’re going to be doing what we did for hockey, lacrosse and water sports there, for sports indoors over the winter time and it’s something nice we’re embarking on. I can’t speak highly enough about the advocacy from Councillors Carpenter and Sless and from our old friend, Councillor [Larry] Kings, who sat in the premises many years ago. …In my history on council, they have been the advocates for minor sports and minor sport facility development in the city so thanks very much for that.”
The vote on the resolution, as amended, was then carried unanimously and will come in front of council again during the City Council meeting on Tuesday, October 29, 2024.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
