Jean-Daigle Centre

We were hired by the City of Edmundston in June of 2014 to develop funding to build a $21M Civic Centre, now known as the Jean-Daigle Centre. JP was Founding CEO of BNP Atlantic at the time. The City of Edmundson had just commissioned a group of six business leaders to take on the challenge building a Civic Centre. The Edmundston Forum had been demolished ten years earlier because of the state of the building. The City had tried once before to get the project on rails, but the initiative had failed because of complications with an oversized project.

From the start, the City wanted to build a state-of-the-art facility that would become a regional hub for Ice Sports, Concerts and Tradeshows. They wanted to build a facility that would appeal to and serve the great majority of the regional population. They wanted to build an anchor located in the middle of the school, community college and university district, in close proximity to growing hospitality and entertainment centres. They wanted to make Edmundston exciting again and more appealing to the 10 000 cars that drive by on Highway 2 everyday. They wanted to build the community up!

The Major Capital Campaign goal was set at $2.5M with a total project budget at $21M. In the end, the campaign reached $4.75M project and the 2400 seat building was built on time and on budget opening its doors in November 2017. The excess $2.25M from the campaign was reinvested to expand in additional components of the building suites.

As it is often the case on Campaign Cabinet, some were skeptics, at the beginning, that we would reach the $2.5M objective and that the project would actually see the day. As time passed, and money started flowing in massively, it soon became obvious that the campaign was a great success.