The Best Seats
In The House

While we all certainly enjoy watching something come to fruition, there is something extra special about being involved in the revitalization of something as well. Over the years, we’ve been blessed to be involved in a number of these types of projects ranging from local community centres and schools all the way to nationally recognized institutions such as Queen’s University.

We’ve been granted access to stripped out gymnasiums and open athletic fields to design and eventually install state-of-the-art athletic equipment and infrastructure. From simple bleachers, to basketball systems to complete grandstands designed to accommodate tens of thousands of fans, these projects have and always will hold a special place in our hearts.

In 2019 our partners at McDonald Brothers Construction brought one of these projects to our attention which would see the expansion and revitalization of a local arena and community centre. The city of Minden was in the process of planning the upgrades to the local arena and community hub and awarded the project to McDonald Brothers Construction, who wasted no time getting our team on board.

As demolition of the location kicked off in May 2019, our team was busy working with key stakeholders to ensure the right products were chosen for the new space. The project was then referred to as the SG Nesbitt Renewal Project. Despite getting hit with a COVID19-induced delay for about a month’s time, the project continued to move forward throughout the beginning of this year.

As a two-phased project, the initial phase was to be set in the new gymnasium at the community centre, which was being built from the ground up. This portion of the project included some ceiling suspended basketball systems and a gym divider curtain that had to be custom designed and mounted to fit on their steel building. Given the fact that these particular types of buildings are not necessarily designed to have anything hung from them, we had to work with the engineers at McDonald Brothers Construction to determine what needed to be designed and implemented to attach our systems to this unique clear-span building.

It was decided that the team would go in and reinforce certain areas of the building where we could then install the products.

Following the necessary upgrades, the equipment was efficiently and safely installed. Then came the installation of the new gym flooring as our team was also tasked with designing a completely inclusive wall padding system that would see every wall in the gymnasium adorned with our permanent wall padding.

A project of this magnitude can quite often come with setbacks. Considering the fact that the coordinated effort between our team, key stakeholders from the city of Minden and our partners at McDonald Brothers had to work through a global pandemic, the end result was fabulous.

Our installation crews were deployed in a coordinated effort in tandem with McDonald Brothers Construction to ensure we were on-site installing these items during the correct phase of the construction process. Follow us for more updates on the arena portion of this project as we round the corner into the end of 2020.