Owen Sound Council has approved the site plan for the 38 million dollar regional recreation centre at Victoria Park.
The approval gives the green light for actual construction of the centre.
Work at the site up until now has dealt with soil remediation and servicing.
But Councillor Jim McManaman — the Chair of the Rec Centre’s steering committee — says the next steps will involve digging for the aquatic centre component of the project as well as laying the foundation for the facility.
Council also approved a two-pronged strategy regarding the looming deadline of March 31st 2011 – by which time the rec centre must be substantially complete in order to qualify for full federal and provincial infrastructure funding.
The city has made it known that it would like the deadline to be extended in the event the building is not complete by then.
It intends to move ahead with efforts to ensure that full funding will be available.
These efforts will include working with MP Larry Miller, MPP Bill Murdoch, associations of which the city is a member, and other communities facing similar time constraints with their own infrastructure projects.
The second part of the strategy is to encourage speedy completion of the centre on a case-by-case basis, as each tender is issued for the different steps along the way.
Council considered implementing additional shifts, going 16 or even 24 hours a day on the project, and/or going seven days a week in order to accelerate the process.
But it was felt that, because so much of the work to be done is exterior, it would be difficult to do at night and during the forthcoming winter of 2010-11.
The resources of the contractor were also cited, as were escalating labour and construction costs which would not necessarily be offset by a faster schedule.