Nearly 10 months after a flood damaged the Bragg Creek Community Centre, the doors officially re-opened this week.
“It feels good,” said Luanne Murphy, facility director of the Bragg Creek Community Centre.
“It was pretty challenging for a while … but now we have our fire and security systems in place and we just passed all our inspections.”
The community centre has been under renovations since Jan. 14 when one of the fire-suppression pipes in the ceiling burst leaking a combination of water and fire suppressant on the stage and auditorium area. The damage extended to the back half of the building, destroying the auditorium and meeting rooms.
“The main focus was to get the meeting room space renovated then the gym and stage. Right now we are still waiting for fire suppressant curtains and a stereo system,” Murphy explained.
After the meeting rooms were renovated, they were rented out and programs slowly started returning to the centre again.
Staff is fundraising to help recover the costs of the renovations.
The facility director explained that while insurance covered the cost of the fire suppressant system, the main line and secondary line needed to be replaced due to low pressure – and once the lines were replaced the staff discovered the system was connected to a variety of other systems that needed to be upgraded in order to meet code and to make the systems compatible.
Rocky View County helped with initial costs and funded $75,000 of the fire suppression system installation. Due to the unexpected upgrades however, community centre staff is still fundraising to recover costs that totalled approximately $200,000.
“There were no layoffs during the renovations, there was a reduction in hours but we were fortunate enough to relocate all of our programs,” Murphy explained.
For the last 10 months, programs were relocated with help from various Bragg Creek venues, including Country Kids Daycare, Redwood House, The CountryWood, Yoga Within the Heart, Snowbirds Chalet and Banded Peak School.
Now the programs are back at the Bragg Creek Community Centre with a variety of upcoming events and performances.
For more information on upcoming events or current programming, go to braggcreekca.com or call 403-949-4277.
