Council hesitant to invest time and money in James Whyte Arena

City Hall has identified three short-term tenants for the empty James Whyte Arena, but Thorold City Council is hesitant to move forward with the project.

As ThoroldToday reported, City Hall wants to work with the Thorold Community Activities Group (TCAG), the 128 Thorold Flying Dragons and the Thorold Minor Soccer Club to develop a collaborative operational plan for the arena — but some councillors feel that the project is a waste of time and money.

“With all the issues that we have in there, is it even smart to pursue this?” asked Councillor Mike De Divitiis, during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “Maybe it’s a better use of our time if we don’t even look at this.”

The city wants to talk to the three different user groups to gauge what kind of internal improvements would be necessary before they can use the facility.

“Part of our process is to come back with some kind of analysis what capital improvements would need to be done,” explained the Director of Community Services, Geoff Holman.

But some councillors fear that the arena would quickly become a money pit. 

“I don’t see [the community groups] coming forward with a lot of potential capital investment that’s required,” said Councillor Henry D’Angela. “It’s not one of council’s high priorities. We don’t have money trees growing in the cemetery so we have to make sure we’re very diligent in what we pick.”

Councillor D’Angela also said he would like to see staff invest their time elsewhere, such as the proposed new turf field, and baseball diamond improvements.

“I’m a little hesitant of spending staff time,” he said. “Do you have the capacity to work on this while doing all the other projects?”

Holman answered that otherwise the arena would just be sitting empty until a long-term plan for the facility is established, which isn’t due until 2027 at the earliest.

“This is really just seen as a stop-gap measure in the next three to five years until the permanent plan can be put in place,” he said. “There’s a cost to doing nothing as well.“

Councillor Anthony Longo thinks that interested user groups should use the Canada Games Park instead.

“Some of these groups wanted a new facility which we built and now they don’t want to use the new facility but they tell us they would use this facility,” he said. “It really concerns me that we’re going to keep throwing good money after bad. We have all kinds of available time for rent at a facility that we’re committed to. They should go to that facility and rent space and time.”

Mayor Terry Ugulini said that he’s not in favour of spending any money on the James Whyte Arena either but that all that’s happening right now is that City Hall is putting together a report with a possible short-term plan.

“This is just to get a detailed report back,” he said. “There’s no commitment that we’re doing anything.”

And with that council ordered City Hall to talk to the three groups and come back with a report on the feasibility of the project.