CALGARY – Officials with Rocky View County say they are taking steps to close down Chestermere's recreation centre because of heavy snowfall expected to hit the region on Friday.

The measures are being taken in response to a recent structural analysis that discovered a portion of the facility's roof was at risk of collapse in the event of a heavy snowfall.

As a result, the county has decided to close the facility entirely at 5 p.m. on Friday.

"We simply won't take risks with people's lives," said Rocky View County reeve Greg Boehlke.

The closure affects the roof of the building above the Red Rink, but it is unknown how it might impact the safety of the entire facility.

"There's two rinks there, two ice surfaces. One is about 10 years old and that's the one that has the problems," Boehlke said. "The two are joined by a mezzanine floor right now and we are concerned that if there were a failure in the roof of the Red Rink, is there issues that can happen to the Blue Rink?"

Boehlke said he knows the closure will impact users of the facility but hopes they appreciate the county has their safety at the top of mind.

"This is the most responsible course of action."

He added they will also be working with community partners to determine the long-term plans for the building.

"We are going to commission further engineering studies on what it would take to mitigate this."

Meanwhile, a member of the community association that helps manage the facility says the closure announcement took them by surprise.

"It was very shocking, we thought we had a much better relationship," said Derek From with the Chestermere Regional Community Association. "At no time did we think our membership was unsafe. We were doing our best to mediate any of the problems, so we can only speculate why this was done at this time.”

From says the whole process has been frustrating to them as well.

"The impact is going to be enormous on the community. It's very shocking to us and we really hope there is a solution to this that doesn’t just have the doors locked."

Operators of the Chestermere Playschool, which uses the arena, say they feel like they are scrambling to find a suitable option in a short window.

 

"This is our home, we love our space, every year we do things to fix it up for the kids, and we’re in a bit of a struggle right now to find somewhere," said Vanessa Bourgault, volunteer president.

An engineer with Stantec says the county could be overreacting in regards to the closure.

In a letter written to the Chestermere Recreation Centre's management and obtained by CTV News, the firm says in its professional opinion, the "closure of the facility is not necessary in the immediate future."

"While our analysis indicates that the snow loading prescribed in the current version of the National Building Code of Canada and the Alberta Building Code would cause an overstress condition in the roof; this amount of snow loading would not necessarily cause collapse of the structure."

In 2018, two Calgary facilities were shut down for a similar reason.

Fairview Arena's roof collapsed on February 20, 2018 and while no one was injured in the incident, it did prompt the city to conduct immediate inspections on all 41 of its arenas.

Jack Setters Arena, in the southeast, was included in those inspections and closed because of a risk of the facility's roof collapsing under the weight of heavy snow.

The building remained closed until the beginning of this month.

The city decided earlier this year that Fairview Arena would not be reopened.

According to CTV Calgary meterologist Kevn Stanfield, current forecast models are calling for five to seven centimetres of snow later on Friday, but other predictions show the snowfall to begin sometime in the morning.

"[Over] 20 cm isn't out of the question, with the majority backlog into Monday."