Uncertainty around the city’s indoor sports field has made development of an artificial turf field at Blackburn Park more urgent for the Shuswap Youth Soccer Association.
Last month the city announced the SASCU Indoor Memorial Sports Complex couldn’t be occupied in its current state. This was prompted by findings of a detailed structural assessment of the facility by Bar Engineering. Bar’s report concluded repair of the structure, built in 1957 (with additions in 1961 and 1966), would require a “significant investment.”
“It is the opinion of the undersigned that permanent repairs to the building envelope and structure, with the intent of extending the useful service life of the facility, is not a viable solution and replacement should be considered,” reads the report.
The city said it hadn’t finalized its decision on the arena’s future and is awaiting completion of a lifecycle analysis.
Despite the important role the facility has played in accommodating Shuswap Youth Soccer Association (SYSA) programming, SYSA chair Jayme Franklin said a proposed synthetic turf field at Blackburn Park remains a priority for the association.
“It would be great if we had a clear plan and buy-in from the city to replace the indoor facility, we’d be all over it, but the city does not have an appetite for it,” said Franklin.
Franklin said the artificial field will extend the local soccer season, bringing it in line with the region.
“The whole thing started with the issue Salmon Arm doesn’t get on the field until late April, best case, and there’s been years where we don’t get on until May,” said Franklin. “The season, the Thompson-Okanagan season, starts at the beginning of April, so not only can we not practice, we can’t even play games here for the first month of the season…
“We’re at a shortage of playing space, even for our house program which is by far our biggest program.”
After years of requesting the city’s support for a synthetic turf field, council committed $700,000 in its 2024 budget for the project that had been estimated to cost about $1.2 million. SYSA agreed to contribute another $300,000, with fundraising expected to cover the remainder.
Franklin noted, however, that the price tag for the proposed playing surface has since gone up due to the fill used where the field is to be located, at the southwest end of Blackburn Park. He explained the synthetic field is going there so as not to take away from city fields used by the more than 1,200 kids currently involved in SYSA programming.
“That fill all has to come out because it’s garbage – you can’t build on it, so we actually have to remove it and bring in structural fill…,” said Franklin, explaining $150,00 to $200,000 is needed for lighting of the proposed field, and another $200,000 to $300,000 “because of the hiccup with the geotechnical condition of the site.”
“In total, if we could raise half a million bucks we’d be doing this right away. Realistically, if we could get $200,000, I think we could make it happen but just without lights. I think we’re going to try to sell some square metres of field for fundraising. But we’ve also had no input form any other user groups which would be nice to see because this isn’t a soccer facility, it’s a multi-use facility, so we’d like the other stakeholders to pony up as well.”
Despite the additional cost, Franklin maintains it is important the project be done right the first time. Asked if the field would be constructed to one day accommodate some form of covering, Franklin said no, in part due to the concerns with the ground, but also the size of the playing surface.
“This is a bigger playing surface… this is over double the size of the indoor facility,” said Franklin.
“It’s a lot of money to do the full blown thing but we want to do it right the first time and there’s not really an opportunity to put a building on this later. Well, there is, but it would cost a lot more than just putting up a building somewhere else and again, we don’t want to lose fields. We only want to make fields.”
Read more: Report recommends replacement of historic Salmon Arm sports facility
Read more: $1M budget enough to get artificial turf project going at Salmon Arm park
