Iqaluit launches infrastructure fundraising drive

Amy Elgersma, Iqaluit’s recreation director, shows off a $1600 cheque donated by the Water’s Edge restaurant towards fundraising efforts to pay for Iqaluit’s planned swimming pool. The city is about to enter the design phase on the new pool and a host of other, badly-needed infrastructure projects. (PHOTO BY CHRIS WINDEYER)

The City of Iqaluit is about to take the next step towards a series of public buildings that could transform the city’s urban landscape.

City recreation staff will seek council approval May 10 to enter into the second phase of a project that would see the city build a new swimming pool, arena, recreation centre, city hall and fire hall.

Recreation director Amy Elgersma said council’s approval of the second phase would mean the green light for design work, a business plan and lots of fundraising for a project that will likely run into the tens of millions of dollars.

“It just allows us to move forward confidently, that we have council’s support,” she said.

Elgersma said the city’s first priority is a new swimming pool — now referred to as an “aquatics centre”—planned for the vacant lot next door to the Arnaitok complex.

She said public meetings last year identified the pool as Iqaluit’s most pressing recreational need, because the current Astro Hill pool is too small, too old and too expensive.

“The good thing about that site [next to the Arnaitok complex] is that the aquatics centre can proceed almost immediately because the city owns that lot, it’s currently vacant and nothing has to be relocated,” she said.

She also said public feedback showed a preference for more recreation facilities downtown.

Long term, the plan is to replace the aging Arnaitok Arena with a second ice surface at the Arctic Winter Games complex and build a new recreation centre on the downtown lot.

Meanwhile, the hope is to build a new city hall, either at the old courthouse building, on vacant land near Four Corners or at the current Legislative Assembly, which could become vacant if Government of Nunavut plans for a permanent legislature near the AWG come to fruition.

And the city hopes to build a new home for its fire and ambulance services, possibly on Inuit-owned land on Federal Road or on a vacant lot at the intersection of Apex Road and the Road To Nowhere.

What remains an open question is where the money to pay for this infrastructure will come from.

On the agenda for the May 10 meeting is a request for decision from council to apply to the P3 Canada program, a federal Crown corporation that helps local governments fund public private partnerships.

Even then, the city will probably still have to borrow money to fund all or part of the project, meaning another ratepayers’ referendum is likely.

The city has also started fundraising. Elgersma said the fundraising committee has already raised nearly $50,000 for the new pool, including a $1,600 donation from the Water’s Edge restaurant that Elgersma picked up May 4.

The design phase will start with a series of workshops for city staff, user groups and the general public. The public workshops are set for May 14 at L’ecole des Trois Soleils, starting at 10:30 a.m.