Efforts to preserve the world’s oldest basketball court in St. Stephen and create an “experience centre” have received support from a former premier.
Frank McKenna and TD Bank announced Tuesday that they are jointly contributing $25,000 toward the capital fundraising campaign.
The announcement was met with excitement by Robert Otto, board president of Canada 1st Basketball Inc.
“We’ve reached out to some folks that we know have some interest in the history and bringing New Brunswick along,” Otto said in a phone interview Tuesday.
“Mr. McKenna is a person that most people would recognize I think in New Brunswick, so we reached out to Mr. McKenna and he was nice enough to entertain our request.”
Otto said the estimated $10-million capital fundraising campaign will be broken up into two phases.
The donation from McKenna and TD Bank will be used for phase one, which officials are looking to raise about $1 million for.
“Which is really raising the funds that we need to acquire the building that contains the original court and stabilize it to make sure that there’s no damage to the court,” said Otto.
The court will be the centrepiece for phase two — the development of a basketball experience centre and hall of fame facility.
Otto said what exactly the experience centre will look like will be decided as part of the first phase of the project.
“We want that historical court to be the centrepiece of the centre that we envision, and whether or not that’s renovations to the existing building or building around the existing building, some of that is yet to be determined,” he said.
It is envisioned that the centre will include interactive information exhibits, memorabilia and artifacts, and travelling exhibitions from other institutions.
Otto said they are “a little over halfway” to their initial goal for phase one and are confident they can reach the target by the end of 2020.
The group anticipates being able to raise most of the money for phase two within 12 to 18 months after that, he said.
“I think it provides an opportunity for St. Stephen and the province of New Brunswick and Canada overall to reach out to the world and celebrate our contributions to the amazing game of basketball.”
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