MD of Bonnyville council approved the scope of the project duing their March 25 meeting, outlining what they'd like to see in the final product. The adventure park will be going to tender in the coming months, once the MD firms up some details.
“It outlines everything that we’re looking for that’s related to the project,” explained Chris McCord, director of parks, recreation, and culture for the MD. “It’s so whoever is bidding on it will have a good understanding of what it is that we’re looking for.”
According to Reeve Greg Sawchuk, there’s a few items council has on their wish list.
“One of the things that we had in there is for everybody to enjoy it, and that meant for the ability for everybody to make it up to the different levels because this is going to be a high structure,” he detailed. “We wanted it to have a good viewpoint of the lake, so that if people want to go up there you can just stand there, look out, and it’s amazing.”
Sawchuk added they want the obstacles to be appealing for all ages, and would like to see themes incorporated that relate to the municipality.
“You only have to look as far as our logo to see some of the things that go on here,” he expressed. “That’s agricultural, oil, aerospace, and our lakes. If something like that could be included as well that would be amazing.”
The municipality will be funding the project themselves after deciding in February they couldn’t wait any longer for the federal government’s Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP).
With the adventure park being a few years in the making, council agreed they didn’t want to put it off any longer.
The process back was first started back in 2012, when the council at the time voted in favour of completing a study to look at the potential of turning Kinosoo Ridge into a year-round facility.
“It goes in line with what this council has really moved forward on and that’s recreation,” noted Sawchuk. “Now it’s becoming even more important that we’re looking at recreation in the bigger picture and that’s in the tourism side and allowing people to do more things in the area because, as we see, we need a certain amount of diversification here to help our economy. We have a beautiful area with all the lakes, and Kinosoo is one of those gems.”
McCord said a timeline for when proposals need to be submitted is still being figured out. Once that’s done, the scope of work will be available for businesses to bid on and options will be presented to council before a decision is made.
Sawchuk added, “We left it kind of open to get a wide variety and then we will look at all of those and decide which way we want to go forward.”
