In 2009, City of Fort St. John received a $22,266 grant from Northern Development through the Community Halls and Recreation Facilities program towards this $66,800 project. This has been a funding partnership of City of Fort St. John and Northern Development
2012-Fort St. John’s newest recreation complex, the Pomeroy Sport Centre, is a beautiful ice facility and sport event centre in northeast British Columbia. It was designed to create a lasting legacy that will shape the future of the Energetic City for years to come. The facility is a centre of excellence for sport, promotes community and personal wellness, and provides an attractive venue for events appealing to a wide range of interests.
Northern Development supported the development of the project by providing funding to assist in the installation of a retractable bleacher seating system to accommodate 500 people that can be moved between ice surfaces and other areas of the facility.
The first floor of this three floor facility features two removable NHL sized ice rinks, a concession, twelve dressing rooms, and two public meeting rooms. Removing the ice surfaces creates over 80,000 square feet of usable event space.The second floor of this facility is home to a Booster Juice outlet, as well as one of only three indoor Olympic-sized long track speed skating ovals in North America. The third floor of this facility is home to the Northern Vac Track. The track is 340 meters around with heated tubing throughout.
The custom designed seating design can be tailored to any event, allowing residents and visitors to attend a variety of events in this community gathering place.
"The fact that we can access a grant from Northern Development without any impact on the taxpayers is obviously key, and being able to provide more seats in the Pomeroy Sport Centre right away as opposed to waiting until the next budget year is also valuable."
Bruce Lantz, former Mayor, City of Fort St. JohnThe additional seating gave the Pomeroy Sport Centre greater potential to host high level tournaments, competitions, teams and fans from all over Canada. This brought a wide range of economic benefits to local hosts, restaurants, retailers, sporting goods retailers as well as to local sports groups. This project also supported the sustainability and expansion of local community infrastructure to host events which increase tourism revenues.