Cavan Monaghan Community Centre
Millbrook, Ontario
Client : Township of Cavan-Monaghan
Area : 50,100 sf
Program : Single-Pad Arena (Spectator Seating, Changerooms), Fitness Studio, Indoor Track, Multi-Purpose Community Room, Community Hall, Concession, Administrative and Support Spaces
In a town of under 10,000 people southwest of Peterborough, Ontario, the Cavan Monaghan Community Centre is a new arena with ample spaces for social gathering and recreation, scaled to meet both current and future needs. Multipurpose and multigenerational, the complex reduces barriers to accessibility and follows sustainable design and construction practices, making it a great improvement over the town’s only other arena, a modest aging structure located on a floodplain.
The Centre’s program is organized around an NHL-size ice rink with six team change rooms and two referee change rooms; a future phase will add a second rink to the west, connected to these change rooms and to the refrigeration unit and Zamboni storage. Also surrounding the rink are spectator seating, an upper-level viewing deck, and a heated observation area within the lobby.
In addition to the ice rink program, the Centre also comprises a running track with views to the east and south, a fitness studio and community hall that face north to overlook an outdoor playground through full-height glazing, as well as multipurpose rooms, parks and recreation department offices, a concession stand, and a spacious lobby with café-style seating. Throughout the Centre, interiors are finished in black, white, and the Township’s signature green, with touches of wood to soften the modern aesthetic and create warm, inviting moments for gathering and socialization.
The Centre is built using prefabricated structural and envelope systems to minimize costs, with a strategic massing strategy that scatters an abundance of natural light throughout the interior—including clerestories that make it possible to use the rink without artificial lighting. This daylighting scheme is just one of several strategies designed to boost environmental and economic sustainability, along with the use of translucent wall systems instead of glass for improved R-value and insulation, sensor-controlled all-LED lighting, low-flow fixtures, a high-albedo roof ready for the future addition of a PV array, a comprehensive building-control system to maximize the efficiency of all operations, condensing boilers that recover heat energy from exhaust vapour, and total heat recovery from the ice pad chiller for use in radiant flooring in the spectator areas and change rooms, preheating domestic water, and snow-melting sidewalks at the entrance.