TNIM presents plans for Community Centre renovation to council

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Theatre Night in Merrickville (TNIM) has submitted a request to continue their renovations on the Merrickville Community Centre.

In 2018, TNIM spearheaded and completed renovations to the upper floor of the Community Centre to include a storage area and a sound-resistant wall to reduce noise transmission between the upstairs room and the main floor hall. “This dramatically improved the upstairs in the Community Centre,” TNIM Treasurer Rod Fournier wrote in a letter to council.

TNIM’s next project is to create a production booth where they will be able to monitor an ongoing play and control stage lighting, sound, music etc. The booth will be in the northwest corner of the main hall at the level of the upstairs room, and will be accessed from the top of the stairs. Rod assured council in his letter that the booth will be above the main floor and will not impact the functionality of the main hall. A sketch was provided to council which can be found in the November 25 council package on the municipal website.

TNIM is committed to doing all the work and covering all the costs themselves. They hope to get started over the Christmas holidays and are looking to council to waive the building permit fee and cover them under the Village insurance during construction. Rod noted in his letter to council that the plan has been reviewed by the Village Chief Building Official, who sees no problem with it. It will also be reviewed by the Merrickville Fire Department to make sure all concerns are taken into account.

Council was adamant that they support the project and are grateful to TNIM for their commitment to improving the Community Centre. “This will improve the ability of that room to present as a better rental facility,” Councillor Timothy Molloy said at the meeting.

That being said, CAO Doug Robertson noted that this project is more complex than the one TNIM took on last year, and will entail engineering drawings as well as electrical work. Because of this, council decided to give their support for the project in principle but has asked staff to prepare a high-level report regarding the process of this project and bring it back to council at the next meeting in December. “It’s a very exciting project,” Mayor Doug Struthers said. “We want to make sure we get it right once.”

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