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From the Centre: Inconvenience was worth it for upgraded Creston community complex

Fitness patrons and instructors who were in a constant state of flux, never knowing what room or temperature they were facing...
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Neil Ostafichuk is the recreation supervisor at the Creston and District Community Complex.

At lunch the other day, some of the staff were reminiscing about the times before and during construction and having a bit of a laugh. Yes, we have finally reached the stage where you can laugh, meaning enough time has transpired where humour replaces horror. We still remember just prior to construction how small exploratory holes were opened up in a few places in walls and ceilings and we griped how it looked tacky having these holes not covered because, hey, we were always proud of the place. Little did we know at that time that when the ceiling was completely torn off, you really didn’t notice the hole anymore.

We all supported the decision made from the get-go — to keep the facility open to the public as best as possible throughout the process. I know there are a few wedding albums out there that show the Creston Room reception being held on plywood floors with no ceiling but it was also amazing how understanding most people were and how you could decorate a warehouse setting and make it look pretty good. Remember how our programmers Andrea and Brooke were sequestered in the old building inspector’s office across the lobby from the main office? You would see their bright shiny faces through the windows, occasionally with dust masks on, and eventually really close together when their office got sliced in half to make the data room. We also laugh (because it wasn’t us) at the maintenance foreman’s office under the bleachers where you didn’t need to put your lunch in the fridge and you occasionally arrived to find a puddle of pop on your desk from someone’s spill on the bleacher seats that seeped through the cracks.

I have to take my hat off to our fitness patrons and instructors who were in a constant state of flux, never knowing what room or temperature they were facing. It didn’t matter that staff were constantly sweeping or mopping; the fitness people always had dirty hands from doing floor exercises. At one point, they were working out in the Creston Room but in order to go to the washroom, they had to pass through a construction door and into an area that, because the front of the building was gone, was less than ideal temperature until you reached the powder room. Unfortunately, for one patron, the door latched behind and there she remained until the rest of the class started to wonder why it was taking so long. I still feel bad about that but luckily that person knows she can hold that chit on me until I am well into a nursing home and I can’t quip my way out of it.

We had our own cross to bear in the admin office — from the massive sheet of plywood that had to be slid open and closed each day to serve patrons, to the pieces of concrete block we would find on our desks throughout the day right through to having to put someone on hold because you couldn’t hear them above the jackhammering, stapling and concrete sawing. We covered all the seasons, as well — from the battle station call to arms during a sudden downpour that had miniature tsunamis spreading across the Canyon or Erickson room floors to office temps sometimes in the nineties, right through to everyone protecting their under-desk ceramic heaters, waving others away with a ruler while hissing, “My Precious!” and a crazy look in their eyes.

There are lots of construction tales, good and bad, beginning from when we dug the first geotech exploratory hole Oct. 30, 2007, through to today when we are in the midst of upgrading Rotacrest Hall. The bottom line is: Time eases all sorrows, you have to crack a few eggs to make a cake and every other applicable philosophical quote — we landed in a pretty good place.

Neil Ostaifchuk is the recreation supervisor at the Creston and District Community Complex.