Fieldhouse Consultation: The Results Are In!

Thank you to everyone who gave their feedback in the latest round of public consultation for a replacement fieldhouse at Windsor Park. At the time the online consultation closed on 12-November-2021, the working group had received responses from 118 residents of this community. Among these, 29 supported the first option (the biggest one, at 2,466 sq. ft.), 35 preferred the second option (2,394 sq. ft.), while 30 picked the third option (the smallest at 1,507sq. ft.). From the comments provided, an additional 13 respondents wanted a smaller facility supporting outdoor programming only with no indoor programming space, while 11 other respondents felt unable to support any of the three options that were presented.

These votes were accompanied with many thoughtful comments and suggestions that gave the group more material to work with as we continue to tweak the design of the fieldhouse. Many of you called for sensible changes to the proposed designs, such as building a larger roof overhang to better accommodate outdoor activities, paying greater attention to green and net-zero building features, making the washrooms more obviously accessible from the outside, situating the rink equipment storage closer to the rink itself, and for the kitchen (or servery) to be accessible from the outside as well as in.

We also received feedback that the design needs to remain sensitive to the other uses of this park, that the construction of a new building retain as many of the surrounding trees as possible and be as visually unobtrusive as possible, but at the same time be as attractive as possible in its external finishes and design.

The fieldhouse working group will continue to work with the architect who prepared these three designs to try and accommodate as many of the community’s suggestions and preferences as possible. The group is now preparing to present a recommended design to Councillor Shawn Menard before taking the recommended design to the OSCA Board at its December meeting. This will allow the Board to make a decision at its January 2022 meeting on whether to proceed with the design. If the Board does give the go-ahead to this project, OSCA will develop an application to the City’s Major Capital Projects Program, to be submitted by 1st March 2022 as a first step in what will likely be a number of fundraising initiatives.