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Indoor Turf Facility

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Committee recommends city-run model for Tbaytel Multiplex

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City Council’s Quality of Life standing committee has approved a recommendation for the city to run its new indoor turf facility.

The facility, now dubbed the Tbaytel Multiplex, is slated to open in late 2026.

Third-party management models, both for-profit and not-for-profit, were considered for the $36 million building, but neither the administration nor city council expressed an appetite for outsourcing the building’s management.

A key consideration was the cost to users. While a third-party model could reduce costs to the city, concerns were expressed that those costs could be offloaded to consumers, who might have to pay more to use the facility.

Because the facility is taxpayer-funded, councillors and stakeholders alike weren’t interested in an outside operator collecting additional excess profits from users.

By comparison, Kelly Robertson, Commissioner of Community Services, assured the committee that she believed “the type of activities that are going to be offered through this facility are going to be affordable and accessible to all ages and abilities.”

City Manager John Collin maintained that even with services offered at an affordable rate, the facility could still achieve a balanced budget.

Preferential treatment was another factor in the recommendation. A for-profit model might incentivize the facility to prioritize booking large groups, at the expense of many smaller groups that also hope to book turf time.

Collin pointed out that the city’s allocation policy for ice rinks could guide how the city manages the turf facility.

City administration has also recommended creating a reserve fund for the multiplex, which would put aside $650,000 each year.

Collin explained that having a reserve fund would help the city be more prepared, “so that when there is a mid-life cycle renovation that needs to occur, or an end-of-life replacement to the project, we don’t find ourselves in the situation… where we’re trying to figure out where the money’s coming from.”

He added that should the multiplex ever run a surplus, any extra money could go into that reserve fund.

The Tbaytel Multiplex, currently under construction. (Sam Goldstein/November 6, 2025)

Let's All Play turf facility fundraiser

New non-profit raising funds for indoor turf facility

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Let’s All Play, a new Thunder Bay non-profit, is raising money for the city’s multi-use indoor turf facility.

The city government has pledged $36 million to build the facility, which it hopes will be ready by next fall. But with such a hefty price tag, the city has said it welcomes additional private sector fundraising.

The fundraising campaign, called Play it Forward, will allow teams of five to compete in peer-to-peer fundraising with a chance to win prizes.

Michael Veneziale, President of Let’s All Play, has pledged a $10,000 matching donation to get the campaign going. The campaign is aiming top raise $100,000.

“We really believe in this facility. Not just for the users, but for the community,” says Veneziale. “I truly believe that when this is done, we’re going to wonder how we lived without it.”

Veneziale is also the CEO of Soccer Northwest. In that role, he says he has to turn down about 1,500 kids in soccer programs each year due to a lack of winter spaces.

Once built, the new turf facility will offer the city all-season indoor facilities for a wide range of activities, which will fill that demand.

“This is something that everyone in the community can get behind because it has value to so many different organizations,” says Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff. “Three years from now, people are going to be asking, why did it take us so long?”

The Play it Forward campaign is just one piece of the non-profits fundraising efforts. In total, it hopes to raise $1 million, though that number includes a $500,000 donation from the Community Economic Development Commission’s Tourism and Development Fund.

indoor turf facility

City debates management models for Indoor Turf Facility

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City Council’s Quality of Life Standing Committee weighed management options for the Indoor Turf Facility currently under construction at Tuesday’s meeting.

The councillors present were presented with differing management models: a city-run facility, a not-for-profit third-party-run facility, or a for-profit third-party-run facility.

Thunder Bay’s city government has dedicated $36 million to the project and expects the facility to be open by October 2026.

Councillors at the committee meeting overwhelmingly agreed that a city-run model would be preferable.

“We went to the public to ask them to build the facility with private dollars, and that never did materialize,” said Councillor At Large Shelby Ch’ng at the meeting. “So to hand it over to a private company now to reap the rewards, I think will not go over well with the city of Thunder Bay, who footed the bill for the facility.”

The city put forward a call for proposals from private operators in August to gauge the feasibility of handing the facility over to a third party. It received three responses from for-profit entities and one from a non-profit entity.

The standing committee was told that the benefits of a third-party operation included less financial risk to the city and a greater capacity for raising capital funds in the future.

Meanwhile, a city-run venture would offer greater flexibility in running the operation, and the possibility of a small financial surplus.

The city estimates that should the turf facility be city-run, it would bring in revenues of $1.4 to $1.6 million in its first year, with expenses of at least $1.35 million.

City Manager John Collin explained that any public-private-partnership agreement would require a thorough contract with a private entity, and any use of the facility not foreseen in that contract would be off the table until the contract expired.

Collin expressed his own preference for a city-run operation as well.

“The city of Thunder Bay has tremendous experience in running recreational facilities,” he said. “In fact, with the exception of the tournament centre, we run them all – golf courses, aquatic centres, sports fields, etc… So we have a level of experience that mirrors the best of the for-profit organizations in running this.”

As a purely information-based discussion, the committee made no recommendations, despite the opinions of councillors.

City Council will discuss the management of the Indoor Turf Facility again in the future.