West Perth is forming a West Perth Arena Building Condition Assessment Task Force to deal with costs in the millions of dollars that the building faces.
The municipality recently had an assessment done on the building in Mitchell, and it found that the structural integrity is sound, but the arena floor and refrigeration system are at end of life and could cost roughly $2-$2.5 million to replace.
Mayor Walter McKenzie added that general repairs, including those to the roof, will cost roughly $2.5-$3 million over the next 10 years, so council felt establishing this task force was necessary.
"What we're trying to do is get some public inout into the direction that we should go. There are four options there, and different people have different ideas as to what option we should be looking at," McKenzie shared.
Members of the public are being asked to volunteer for the task force that will include Mayor McKenzie and a member of council, alongside staff. McKenzie says many people have already put their names forward and they will hopefully get started with meetings for the task force in the next couple weeks.
The options before them include repairing the ice pad and refrigeration system, repairing the roof and spending on general upkeep required, building a new ice pad onto the existing facility, or building a totally new facility.
"I've heard a few people say 'Well the building is over 50-years-old now, and you're just gonna be spending a pile of money on it for the next number of years.' But you gotta look at how much money we will be spending, and there's a lot of money, no matter what," noted McKenzie.
Potentially replacing the ice pad, or building a new facility, won't be cheap, according to McKenzie.
"So one option is you leave the ice pad as it is now and you don't bother with the lines that are in it and use it for pickleball or other recreational purposes and you build a new ice pad. The cost for that is between $15-$20 million," McKenzie stated. "And then we have the cost of a whole new arena is between $35-$40 million. So those are our costs and it just blows your mind at what it is. So certainly costs have skyrocketed over the last 50 years (since the original arena was built), and that would apply to anything we do."
McKenzie says the hope is to have some more public engagement as part of this process, and he anticipates the task force will come up with a decision this year. He adds that whatever they decide, the goal would be to have work start on whatever that end goal is sometime in 2026.