By Lara Fominoff (@fomsy1 on Twitter)

Construction wrapping up for the season at new Legacy Park

Nov 20, 2017 | 4:25 AM

LETHBRIDGE – By this time next year, Lethbridge’s first dedicated outdoor skating rink could be open to the public.

It will be just one of the many amenities located in Legacy Park in the city’s north end.

Parks Manager Dave Ellis says crews have been steadily completing numerous areas, although inclement weather hit earlier than expected.

“So they haven’t been able to finish the irrigation and so the seeding is not quite done in a few areas of the park. But they’ve got most of the structures completed. They’ve got the ponds completed and they’ve got a number of features inside the park completed, and they’ve just got a little bit of clean up to do.”

Ellis expects that once the ground thaws next spring, it will take about a month to get some loose ends tied, up before the park is opened to the public.

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That said, there will still be areas of construction inside the park for a couple of years.

“The opening and completion of the park will be phased. We’re doing the phase one construction, which is landscaping the whole park and providing all of the basic amenities. But starting next year there will be other pockets of construction around the park…. one of the things we hope to be under construction next spring or early summer is a community pavilion building that’ll hold a meeting room, concession and public washrooms.”

And that’s very close to the location of the outdoor rink. The rink itself will be level with a boardwalk, so skaters can simply ‘walk’ onto the ice. There will also be benches nearby for people to put their skates on, or to rest.

Once everything is finished, the park will also contain Canada’s first outdoor-timed obstacle course, a new skate park, sledding hill, sports courts, soccer fields, a greenhouse, and outlook over one of the ponds, an amphitheatre, multi-use buildings and various types of gardens.

The park should be completed by 2020.