By Natasha Bozek Town of Castor Recreation director
On May 3 town council met to review the bids for the arena project and passed a unanimous vote to move forward with the arena renovations. The project will cost about $950,000 to complete and council will borrow up to $450,000 on our behalf to complete the project.
We currently have just over $450,000 raised for this project. Therefore, in order to complete this project, we need to continue to fundraise. We are currently reviewing fundraising options and are open to ideas from the public. If you have a fundraising idea, please contact Natasha at the recreation office at 403-882-3225 or castorrec@townofcastor.ca. In addition to fundraisers, we will gratefully accept donations from the community.
We are currently cleaning out the lobby and will be holding a sale of the remaining jerseys, equipment and useable items from the arena in late May. Asbestos removal will begin May 14. We are looking for volunteers to help us out with the asbestos removal on May 19 and 20. We will need help from 7 a.m. to about 6 p.m. The volunteer would be responsible to sit outside the containment unit as a safety and a few times throughout the day and haul the sealed bags to the dumpster. If you are able to help us out even for a few hours on one of these days please contact Natasha at 403-882-3225.
Once the asbestos removal is complete we will move into demolition in late May or the first week of June. We will be looking for volunteers to help with demolition and we will provide more specific information on what we are looking for as we get closer to our start date.
As this project is being funded partially with government funding, from the federal, provincial and county governments, and because the building is owned by a municipality, we had to choose the lowest bid to complete the arena project. We did our best to get local contractors by only advertising in the ECA Review and directly inviting local contractors to bid on the project. Many of our local contractors did not bid on the arena project; therefore, most of the work is being completed by companies from other towns.
The contractors for this project are:
Asbestos Abatement - Ross Environmental
Builder - Jim Renschler Construction
Concrete - Jo’s Concrete
HVAC/Plumbing - Sinclair Plumbing
Electrical - Nikor Electric
Metal Stairs/Guardrails - Kimto Manufacturing
Casino
Castor Minor Sports has their next casino June 2-3 in Red Deer. We are looking for volunteers to complete a shift at our casino; if you are able to help out on either of these days please contact Natasha Bozek at the recreation office.
Provincial ball results
Our Bantam AA Boys kicked off their provincial ball season this weekend. Our young squad unfortunately got off to a rough start losing 15-10 to Provost, 22-10 to Camrose and 24-13 to Leduc. The boys will hit the fields again May 21 in Provost at 6pm, then at Great Chief Park in Red Deer May 26 at 12 p.m. against Camrose and 3pm against Red Deer then they’ll see Red Deer again on May 27 at 12 p.m.
For more information on recreation programs please contact Natasha at 403-882-3225 or castorrec@townofcastor.ca.