Great Plains rec centre opens its doors, with private company at the helm

The Great Plains Recreation Facility opened on Saturday, the second of four in the city's rec centre expansion plan. It's the first to be operated by a private company.

Provincial finance minister Joe Ceci was on hand to announce the grand opening of the facility. The province paid $10 million toward construction of the $33 million project.

In the past, the NDP hasbeen critical of public-private partnerships, but Ceci played politic when asked what he thought of the operating arrangement.

"We have our own approaches to how we do things and the City of Calgary has its own approach, and they'resatisfied with the outcomes of what they've done," he said.

"The province of Alberta and itswork to build its own capital infrastructure has different policies and, you know, they can co-exist with each other."

80,000 square feet

Laura-Lynn Richard, there to cheer on her daughter in ringette, said she's happy the facility is open.

"It's awesome, it's a beautiful facility, it's really warm," she said.

The 80,000 square-foot venue has two ice rinks set under large skylights and seats 600 people.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said his office will be monitoring the partnership with the facility operator Canlan Ice Sports, while the company's VP of operations, Mark Faubert, saidthe company will work with the community to ensure local needs are being met.

The city allocated a budget of$480 million for the four new rec centres.The Rocky Ridge rec centre in the northwest and the Seton rec centre in the southeast are scheduled to open in 2017 and 2018 respectively, according to the city.

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