MacDonald Island Park, Fort MacMurray

Shell Place Stadium, the newest stadium in the Fort MacMurray area which is under construction on MacDonald Island Park, will be ready soon and is expected to be ready for the turf to be rolled out by the end of Summer if everything goes as planned. The expansion project on MacDonald Island Park will cost around $127 million by the time it is finished, and the Fort MacMurray area residents will have a stadium that they can be proud of. According to Tim Reid, who is the CEO of Regional Recreation Corporation “Any time that you work on capital projects in Wood Buffalo, you have to keep an eye on weather. Unfortunately it’s that one thing you can’t control, (but) we feel very confident that SMS Stadium will be completed, which is our biggest risk initiative outdoors. We also feel very confident that the work indoors will be completed and delivered on time.”

Reid continued about the expansion and construction on MacDonald Island Park by stating “This is a place where people go anyways. It’s a destination location within the community, and if we can have public transit that’s easier to access, that solves some of our parking challenges (and) it solves some of our accessibility issues. It’s just not feasible to put 20,000 parking stalls and use up the entire island, nor would it be responsible.” Reid also talked about finances. “This year-to-date, we’re off by about $1.6 million. So it’s not trending to where we thought it was going to be, but some of that is actually how we account for expenses, in terms of what equipment is on-site (and) what the architects have approved to be built by the contractor. So yes, there’s a gap between where we thought we were going to be, but when you’re spending $7 to 9 million a month, we’re not really concerned that we won’t make that up.”