There is significant support in Steinbach for the city to build a performing arts centre and the preferred location is downtown. The Mayor's Task Force on Public Engagement for Recreation and Cultural Facilities presented its report to city council Tuesday evening. It noted that while a downtown site is preferred, concerns about insufficient parking must be addressed. Councillor Michael Zwaagstra, a member of the task force, says a scientific telephone survey gave some clear direction to council.

"What we saw in the telephone survey was that there was a significant percentage of the population that felt that such a facility has value, that there was a reasonable amount of support, above 50%, that felt that a funding approach, where the city does not contribute more than 50% of the total, was reasonable and there was a definite split in terms of how much people are willing to pay in terms of any potential operating costs."

Zwaagstra says city council needs to now take all this data and continue with the planning process.

"A component of this is a performing arts centre but we also want to take into consideration an overall master plan and what the other facilities will be. The intent of the survey was to provide feedback about a variety of components and now we're going to take that information and, hopefully, make a better decision going forward."

He notes there was a fairly even split in the survey results about what the next phase of the project should be after a performing arts centre. Zwaagstra says some people want a new arena and others want a field house for court sports like tennis.

Mayor Chris Goertzen says he is encouraged by the report.

"It was very nice to hear that there is support for us to move forward. There is support for us to be cautious. There are some warning signs that people are concerned about parking and about other things. That's all very important information that we're going to use as we create the plan to find the exact location of where we're putting things and the master plan for the entire project before we proceed."

Goertzen says council plans to complete the recreation and cultural master plan by late spring and then work on securing the funding for a performing arts centre.

Click here for: Telephone survey results

                     Online public survey results

                     Online business consultation

                     Task Force presentation slides