Calgary council to vote on moving into design phase on new fieldhouse

Calgary’s multi-sport fieldhouse project committee gave the green light to have city council vote on whether or not to send the fieldhouse to the design phase at their next council meeting.

This comes after the city’s committee heard from residents about the city’s current design.

Calgary sports advocate and host of the Alberta Dugout Stories podcast Joe McFarland has been a long-time supporter of the Foothills Athletic Park Fieldhouse project being built.

He is hopeful some much-needed progress will be made.

“It’s one of the four pillars the city has identified it needs — every major city needs a fieldhouse. This thing has been talked about for a long time and at some point, somebody has to say, ‘Okay, enough’s enough. Let’s move forward,” said McFarland.

He explains the update is long overdue.

“They’ve been kicking it down the field — pardon the pun — a lot,” McFarland added.

Conversations for a new fieldhouse truly started to take shape in 2019, when committee members looked at revamping the entire area around McMahon Stadium.

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The building would consist of a track and field area, indoor turf, and a gymnasium among other amenities.

The goal for the new facility is to host both local and international sporting events.

Like most things, the cost of the project has soared in recent years. Costs were initially expected to be around the $300 million mark but have now soared to an estimated price tag of $380 million.

The city has put aside $109 million.

Council has also thrown around the term “revenue neutral,” adding that it wants to make sure the project won’t be costly for Calgarians in the long term.

Even if the project enters the design phase Monday, it’s still years away from people being to use it.

Local advocates, like McFarland, say the city has been in dire need of a large-scale multi-sport fieldhouse for quite some time now.

“The [University of Calgary] Dinos, or some of those community groups that use the Foothills Stadium, they’re sitting there month to month, year to year going ‘Are we going to have a home? Or are we going to have to find some other field to find a home?'” he said.

If more support is garnered for the project, there is hope that shovels could hit the ground by 2026.