The Best Seats
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When it comes to municipal parks and recreation areas, many have been slowly transitioning into multi-sport parks. For example, once serving singular sports such as baseball or soccer, these parks are now designed with fields and diamonds for both. With increasing populations and sports programming, municipalities are finding that transitioning their parks and recreational areas to be multi-use is providing the solution they need to serve their growing communities.

While on the surface, these shared spaces serve a variety of purposes and have a positive impact on community participation and inclusion. However, there are situations in which the sports can inadvertently interfere with one another. In many cases, this presents no real risk to spectators or participants but in some cases, stray balls can increase the risk of injury to those on adjacent sports fields or bleachers.

Well, it's officially 2024 and in case you haven't heard; Basketball is BOOMING.

Known as the shire town of Kings County,the beautiful town of Kentville, Nova Scotia was the welcoming setting of one of our most recent projects. As with all of our jobs in the Canadian Maritimes, it’s always a pleasure to work within the beautiful settings it offers alongside the wonderful residents who call the region home.

Earlier in the year, we were contacted by some key stakeholders from the town who were in the process of planning some upgrades to the largest park in Kentville. Established in the 1920s, what is now known as Memorial Park has been growing ever since. What started as a simple athletic field to serve young residents, it has now blossomed to include three tennis courts, two basketball courts, five ball fields, four soccer fields, an outdoor pool, splash pad, skating pond, running track, skatepark, playbox, and the Walter Wood Playground.

Nestled along the shores of Lake Ontario in the province's beautiful Niagara Region lies the city of Grimsby. Retaining its small town charm despite being situated between Hamilton and Saint Catherine’s has been one of the major attractions for residents of this lovely town.

We were brought to the region to take a look at a project at one of the city's schools. Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School operates in Grimsby as part of the Niagara Catholic District School Board which serves over 21,000 students across the region. 

Located on the western edges of the City of Ottawa, the small community of Glen Cairn was established back in the 1960s and served as a warm and welcoming community for young families. As such, one of the earlier developments within the community was establishing an elementary school as part of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board.

While a lot certainly has passed since the school was built, much of the facilities have been upgraded over the years. As part of this on-going routine of ensuring all equipment and fixtures are up to date, we were contacted to help design and install a new divider inside the school’s gymnasium. 

If you were lucky enough to have access to a time machine, you could head to almost any school across North America and you’d likely find a set of removable wall pads in the facility’s gymnasium. 

At the time, it was a great choice. Teachers and staff were convinced that giving students the ability to remove their own gym mats for use in gym class was a fine idea. And it was.

To a point.

The truth is, there are some facilities that still use removable padding on their walls. We manufacture and sell it ourselves, so we know it does still have a limited use out there in the market. In some cases, this solution is exactly what facility operators are looking for, depending on the specific programming that school or facility provides.

Working, once again, with the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board (ALCDSB), one of our recent projects took us back to beautiful Kingston, Ontario. Lying at the mouth of the Cataraqui and St. Lawrence rivers, the city is known for its storied history and academic excellence serving as the home for Queen’s University, St. Lawrence College and the Royal Military College of Canada.

Having worked in the area across a multitude of projects, it’s always great to get back and continue to approve athletic facilities in and around one of our favorite cities.

We got a call from the ALCDSB as they were looking for some upgrades for one of their older schools. Located directly downtown, the École catholique Cathédrale was in search of some much needed upgrades to their existing basketball systems.

One of our recent projects brought us to beautiful Essa Township, located just southwest of the town of Barrie, Ontario.. Known for both its annual potato harvest and strong military presence thanks to nearby CFB Borden, the community approached us looking for solutions to some older bleachers at one of their parks.

Located at a busy local baseball diamond, the outdated bleachers were deemed unsafe as they no longer met the stringent specifications set out by today’s code requirements for bleacher seating. The township had plans of dismantling and disposing of the bleachers themselves and came to us for the plan with what to replace them with.

Located in the southeastern region of New Brunswick, our recent project brought us to beautiful Dieppe. A small town that is technically a census metropolitan area of the city of Moncton, it was incorporated as a town in 1952 to commemorate the Second World War's Operation Jubilee, the Dieppe Raid of 1942.

As part of the construction of a brand new sports field at Dieppe’s local high school, Ecole Mathieu-Martin, our team was brought in to design and install a new grandstand for the forthcoming sports field.

Proudly serving the National Capital Region for over 100 years, to say that the Ottawa Boys and Girls Club is a staple in the community would be an incredible understatement. The club currently provides free community-based services and supportive places for area residents across four full-service clubhouses located throughout the city, along with a number of satellite campuses.

We’ve had a long-standing relationship with the local Boys and Girls Club for a number of years now and working alongside them always gives us the added bonus of making a difference in our community.