Repairs at the WFCU Centre could take up to a year to complete.
That's according to Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens.
Speaking on AM800's Mornings with Mike and Meg, Dilkens says he's been told the repairs could take about a year following a roof fire at the centre on McHugh Street last month.
The fire broke out on a section of the roof on April 28, causing $1-million in damage to multiple solar panels and roofing material.
Dilkens says the insurance company along with engineers are on site.
He says the fire ate through the roof right over the AM800 community rink and when firefighters were putting out the blaze, water penetrated in the insulation, affecting the other two community rinks.
"They're going to have to fix the roof from the inside of the AM800 rink," he says. "That's going to be the starting point then they're going to have to remove insulation and repair all of that. It's going to take quite some time to do those repairs. That's why the AM800 rink is closed."
Dilkens says the city will keep the ice longer in the main bowl, to be able to handle the extra demand.
"Everyone's working full steam to try and get these rinks back in order and get the roof fixed," says Dilkens. "Just one of these fluke incidents that we experienced. We're not quite sure what the cause was and we're looking at all of our other solar installations as well just to make sure everything's ok with them, so we don't see this type of thing happen again."
He says the repairs will take time.
"If it's not a year, I think it's certainly going to impact fall rentals on that particular rink and so we're going to try and do this as quickly as possible," he says. "We know, thankfully it happened now of all times of the year when fewer people are skating and so we're going to work very diligently over the summer to try and get all of these repairs done so that we're ready to go for fall."
The fire broke out around 10 a.m. and the building was evacuated.
Power to the building was also cut off and the centre remained closed until noon the following day.
Dilkens says the city will continue to provide updates as they become available.