Lloydminster city council heard a nearly $10 million plan to save the Golf and Curling Centre Monday – and sent it back to administration without giving direction.
The debate that followed the presentation was among the most substantive of the meeting, with councillors raising questions about return on investment, the future of the entire area, and whether the city has a clear enough vision for the facility before committing to that level of spending.
Nobody argued against maintaining the building. But several councillors wanted more than maintenance before they could say yes to $10 million.
Lopez: Where is the vision?
Coun. David Lopez was the most direct.
He acknowledged the need to fix aging electrical and mechanical systems – but struggled with the broader scope of the plan and the price tag attached to it.
“I just, I need a bigger picture,” Lopez said. “I need something bigger and better. To spend that kind of money and not have a vision is – I think is.”
Lopez questioned whether the restaurant could ever be viable again, pointed to the high failure rate of restaurants generally, and noted that some user groups occupy the facility without paying rent. He also raised the loss of the Centennial Civic Centre – which took banquet and event space out of that part of the city – and questioned whether the golf and curling centre could realistically fill that void.
“I struggle with spending those kinds of dollars on an area that we have no plan to grow or revitalize,” Lopez said. “It’s not in the revitalization of anything.”
He did not oppose fixing what needs fixing.
“If the HVAC has to be done, the abatement and the electrical – those are things that can get changed,” Lopez said. “I just don’t know how we get to $1.7 million for a maintenance shop.”
Taylor: Show us the excitement
Coun. Jim Taylor took a different approach. He agreed the building needs investment – but argued the way the plan was presented made it hard for the public to get behind.
“What’s the point of fixing this building? What’s the purpose?” Taylor said – not as opposition, but as the question he said any resident would ask when they see a $10 million price tag on the golf course.
Taylor said reports like this get lost in engineering and code compliance and forget to tell the story of what the investment actually means for people who use the facility.
“When we are looking at spending millions of dollars, the regular resident is looking at this going – you’re going to spend $3 million at the golf course,” Taylor said. “No, no, no – we’re changing a facility. We’re growing the facility.”
He pushed for return on investment framing to be included when the report comes back – not just revenue projections, but what it means to preserve the facility at all.
“Losing the building is just as important as maintaining it,” Taylor said. “The cost is going to be a lot higher if we have to rebuild the whole thing.”
Vance: I’ve never felt unsafe
Coun. Justin Vance said he uses the curling facility weekly and has never felt the building was unsafe or uncomfortable.
He acknowledged liabilities increase with aging facilities – but pushed back on the urgency framing in the report, saying he did not see the kind of catastrophic structural concerns that would demand immediate action.
“I didn’t see any civic centre or museum issue that had my alarms going,” Vance said.
Vance was also skeptical of the program upgrades – the flex room, the patio extension, the circulation space – saying the change rooms are at full capacity during major events and the money might be better directed toward drawing people upstairs to the restaurant.
He raised a pointed question about the facility’s history of renovations that haven’t delivered.
“We took out the nice oak bar and the oak over the raised area that looked over the curling rink, and we added the lights and we made it all open – and ever since then it hasn’t done very well,” Vance said. “I’m worried that we do a renovation and we haven’t really done anything – just like the last renovation.”
Vance said he would support mechanical and electrical investment but wanted to see a stronger case before supporting the broader scope.
Whiting: Don’t do the same thing and expect different results
Coun. Jason Whiting said the debate kept circling back to the same tension – the city needs to invest in the building, but investing without a clear plan for improving the user experience risks repeating history.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Whiting said. “Sometimes I feel like that is what we’re doing here with this facility.”
Whiting said he wanted to see genuine layout options that improve the flow between floors, make the space more inviting, and address what he said is the most consistent complaint – there is nowhere good to eat.
“I would like to see just some really thought out ways to improve the flow from upstairs to downstairs,” Whiting said. “I’m struggling with it until we have a good plan of what this place looks like that’s going to make it better than we left it.”
Administration: We’ve seen this before
City administration made its position clear – inaction has a cost the city has already paid twice.
The old museum and the Centennial Civic Centre both deteriorated past the point of viable investment. Administration said the golf and curling centre is entering the same window those buildings were in years before they were lost.
“If we don’t, the risk is you lose the building and you have to tear it down and you got nothing,” administration said. “Then you’re starting over again.”
Administration also noted the $9.7 million figure covers mechanical and electrical work – not glamour. A good chunk of that number is purely functional.
City manager Dion Pollard pointed out that the full design approach being recommended does not commit the city to spending $10 million at once – it allows the work to be phased intelligently over years, avoiding the costly rework that comes from piecemeal planning.
“We’re talking a million dollars, a million and a half dollars a year versus waiting until everything goes and then spending $10 million at one shot,” Pollard said.
Administration also flagged that a completed design makes the project shovel ready for federal grants – meaning the $962,000 design investment could unlock significantly more in outside funding down the road.
Mayor: Start with the basics
Mayor Gerald Aalbers tried to find the thread that could move council forward.
He said accessible washrooms – at least one barrier-free stall on each floor – are a minimum requirement for a public building. He raised the elevator question as a code issue worth clarifying. And he noted that for a city with a provincially recognized golf course, having a functional facility is not optional.
“If we’re going to have a golf course, we have to have a facility,” Aalbers said. “The basics to start with – then we start to talk about the luxuries after that.”
Aalbers also floated ideas for future uses that could draw new visitors – a climbing wall in the racquetball court space, pickleball courts in the curling rink during summer, even a trampoline park – acknowledging these are longer-term conversations.
What happens next
Council gave no formal direction Monday. The item returns to the May 25 regular council meeting.
Administration said a recreation master plan is planned for 2027 – a process that could help answer the bigger-picture questions about the future of the facility, the former civic centre land next door, and what the city wants that entire area to look like.
“In 2027 we plan to propose a recreation and leisure services master plan that can add some value in that area,” administration said. “What are we doing with that space? What does the future of golf and curling look like?”
For now the building is still open, still functional, and still serving its users. How much longer it can do that without significant investment is the question council will have to answer.
Read more: Golf and curling centre needs nearly $10M in upgrades, report finds
