Upgrades to North Delta Secondary’s track are moving forward, whether or not the city and school district receive external funding.
According to director of parks, recreation and culture Ken Kuntz, the North Delta track could either become a “competition-level track and field facility” or simply see improvements to the track surface and drainage. (The competition-level facility would include an eight-lane track, synthetic turf field, new lighting and parking area, school district secretary-treasurer Nicola Christ said.) It all depends on whether a grant application is approved.
The city and district will be putting in a grant application to the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. The program, funded jointly by the federal and provincial governments, will see up to $135-million contributed to community, recreation and culture infrastructure projects in the first year.
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Applications for the program opened on Sept. 12, and the city has until Jan. 23, 2019 to apply.
At the Delta school board meeting Tuesday (Oct. 9), school trustees voted to work with the city to create a preliminary work plan for the NDSS track.
This work, which includes a site survey, geotechnical report, project description, preliminary designs and cost estimates, would need to be completed whether or not the grant is approved. It’s estimated to cost between $50,000 and $100,000. Costs will be shared equally between the city and the school district.
The cost of resurfacing the track and improving drainage — in the case of an unsuccessful bid — is expected to be less than $1-million.
If the grant is successful, the land ownership would need to be transferred from the district to the city in order to qualify for the grant. School board chair Laura Dixon noted that the grant funding would pay for almost 75 per cent of the project’s cost.
“That means a four-way partnership between the federal government, provincial government, City of Delta and Delta board of education,” she said in September. “That would be incredibly good value for the taxpayers, and that’s what we talked about at this table all the way along. We wanted to see that partnership.”
The South Delta Secondary track resurfacing is moving forward as well. Bids for the construction work are currently under review, but an in-progress engineering report on the foundation of the track could require companies to re-bid on the project. The district is expecting the track to be finished in the fall of 2019 installation.
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