OUTLOOK - A spacious and inviting lobby.
Updated and roomy washroom facilities.
A wide and expansive main hall just aching to host all manner of events.
And enough electrical outlets that every kind of Larry, Curly and Moe can all charge their phones at once.
The newer, extensively renovated Civic Centre in Outlook has all of that and then some.
Indeed, the dream of an updated, modern rehauling of the facility that began a handful of years ago under the guidance of Outlook's previous mayor and town council has finally come to fruition, with the building now fitting the look and demands of a new age and generation.
On a tour of the building on Monday morning, March 14 were this reporter and The Outlook's Delwyn Luedtke, who marveled at the look of, well, everything to do with this extreme facelift that's been applied to the Civic Centre. Kevin Trew, the Town's Chief Administrative Officer, along with Recreation Director Megan Anthony, showed off the facility on a tour that provided a deep look at how everything came together to make this vision come to life.
After an extensive construction period, the only things left to do in the building are very minor.
"Construction began in late June of 2021," said Kevin. "Now, we're onto the very final stages, such as putting some heat registers in. We also do have some cabinetry in the bathrooms and the bar have to be finished up and then that's everything."
While contractors from other areas came in to do the work, it was important to the Town to have local contractors also involved in the project.
"Leeville Construction out of Regina, they were the general contractor," said Kevin. "They also had several subcontractors, and we encouraged them to deal with local contracting as much as possible. One of them was SIMTEC, who did all of the electrical work."
Trew says that the construction was able to stay within budget, actually coming in just under it's projected cost. He says that obtainable grants were responsible for picking up the lion's share of the cost.
"We budgeted originally at approximately $500,000," he said. "We had two grants; the MEEP (Municipal Economic Enhancement Program) grant from the province that we received for 2020-2021, and that was actually through the COVID pandemic and some special money that the province came up with for municipalities. We had a little over $300,000 there, and then we had $100,000 from the Enhancing Accessibility Fund so that we could have wheelchair access. We also had some reserve for the Civic Centre that we tapped into, and it stayed within that $500,000, actually managing to come in just a little bit under."
With its laundry list of updates, extensive renovations, and an open-flow feel to virtually every facet of the building, the new Civic Centre is certainly doing its part to live up to expectations. While every building project is bound to see an issue here or there, Trew says it's about how you handle those ups and downs.
"I think so," he said, when asked if the final product lives up to expectations. "Going into this, we originally started talking about whether we could fit in kitchen renovations. Very quickly, we dismissed that as we realized that the kitchen renovation would be too much money for what needed to happen, so we had to abandon that part. With any project, you do have a few hiccups along the way. As recently as November, we were really trying to squeeze air conditioning into the facility, but unfortunately we had one fairly major hiccup that came about and we couldn't include air conditioning in it right now. But we really like the way that it's turned out."
At the moment, there are no concrete plans in place for renovating the exterior of the Civic Centre, but that could change down the road as fundraising plans are on the horizon for additional amenities.
"At this point, we don't," said Kevin, when asked about the building's exterior. "We are starting a fundraising campaign for air conditioning, as well as further renovations for the facility, so stay tuned for that. It just depends on how corporate and community donations come in for air conditioning, and that's our first priority. Council has actually budgeted for air conditioning, so we're hoping that we have pretty decent support from the community for air conditioning. Depending on how that goes, then we can have some conversations about the external look and even further on, the kitchen renovations. We're definitely looking at keeping this facility current and upgrading it even more in the future. I do know that there's been some people asking what could be done to the outside to update it. We are looking for corporate donations, and Council has said that they would certainly look at renaming the facility if a corporate donor came up with a large-enough amount of money. We haven't identified what large-enough amount of money that is yet, but we can certainly look at naming rights to the facility, as well. Of course, if there were naming rights to the facility, then an external renovation would be happening."
For Trew, what seems to stand out the most about the new Civic Centre can be seen immediately upon entering the facility.
"When I walk in, it just has this wow factor," he said. "You said it yourself, you walk in and it seems more open and inviting. It's just a fresh, new look to it. I think people will be very pleased when they walk in, and I don't think they'll recognize it. This is NOT the Civic Centre from 2019. I think the space and the largeness of it will grab attention, and everybody is going to walk in and look at the ceiling!"
With the building's completion, attention has already turned to hosting community events. One of them is slated for Saturday night, April 9, when the Town will host 'A Night in Monte Carlo', a casino night fundraiser that will serve as the Civic Centre's grand reopening.
"We're really excited," said Kevin. "We have a group of people, some dedicated volunteers, and we started out with our Community Development Advisory Committee, formerly the Recreation Committee, and just had some conversation and asked if they'd be interested in doing this because the Civic Centre is part of our recreational facilities. Everyone said, 'Yes, let's do it'. We thought we needed to have a grand reopening, so we're throwing that aspect into the event too. We were able to contract with a gaming group that brings in all the tables and everything, and it's a fundraising event. When you come in, you'll get some 'irrigation cash' to gamble with, and you can use it to purchase or bid on items. Very much a fundraising event that will benefit the Civic Centre for the purchase of an air conditioner. We're trying to engage other people who want to benefit, so one of the things that we've been trying to do in the last eight months is to make sure that we tap into all facets of the community. We knew that there needs to be a bar at Casino Night, and so we asked the Rodeo Committee if they'd like to run it and proceeds would go towards the rodeo. We'll be making announcements very soon regarding advance tickets. We're very excited, and it'll be a good event."
As well, another event to be held there just three nights later on April 12 is a community open house, which will provide opportunity for people to come out and see what this area may have to offer.
"We're having a busy time here!" said Kevin. "We're really excited about having a community open house. The Town of Outlook and Council have been really dedicated to trying to be a transparent and accountable government, so one of the things that we had some conversations about was, 'How can we reach out to the public and have them reach back out to us?' We've had a lot of things that we've been working on in trying to get people to reach out to us, and in my 11 months here, I feel like I've been reached out to, but I think what's missing from it, and a lot of that was due to the pandemic, is us coming out to the public. Here's the thing with the open house: it's one of our efforts to actually come to the public and put ourselves in front of them and have them feel open to come and have conversations with us. It's not a trade show, but it is trade show-style. We're going to have booths, including several from the Town, and we'll be entertaining conversations about projects that we have going on now and into the future. So then we had some conversations about engaging partnerships, and we started reaching out to different stakeholders and partners who aren't necessarily in business here, but some of them are not traditional businesses. We have almost 20 of them, and the list is still growing. Our hope is that we'll soon have a list of all who will be here. We hope people will come, walk around, engage with who they want to engage, and learn something they didn't know already. I know we've had some conversation with a few people wanting a town hall type of meeting, and I think we're going to try this, with our goal being to do this twice a year. If there is a need to have more of an open town hall meeting to deal with specific issues, we're open to it. We're just really, really excited about this."
In trying to further sum up what it means for the community of Outlook to have a new facility such as this, perhaps the following quote may speak to the perseverance and dedication that has been shown to ensure that this vision came to pass and that generations of people now have an impressive facility to host events and make memories.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama
