Calgary’s West District should be home to a brand-new sport and recreation facility by the end of the decade, if all goes according to plan, that is.

On the corner of Broadcast Ave SW and 78 Street SW, YMCA Calgary and the Calgary Public Library have proposed a 60,000 square foot facility to serve Calgary’s western-most communities.

At this point, Calgary city council has approved initial funding to support planning and design work. GEC Architecture is set to lead the project’s execution. The facility will include a seven-lane, 25m pool, leisure pool, gymnasium, track, fitness studios and multi-purpose rooms, according to the Alberta Major Projects webpage.

It will also have library space including children’s area, reading zones, and meeting rooms and over 200 underground parking spaces.

Shannon Doram, President and CEO of YMCA Calgary, said the proposed facility will be located in a currently under-served area, but will require extensive funding before the project goes further.

“We know that this part of Calgary is under-served in terms of recreation, so this will be an opportunity for Calgarians to engage in physical activity and learning and development all under one roof,” she said.

“We’re looking for about $30 million from each order of government, and if we are able to gather that support, we hope to be in the ground late next year with completion sometime at the end of 2029 or early 2030.”

Karla Gibson, President of West Springs/Cougar Ridge Community Association, said that the proposed facility is highly anticipated from a resident perspective.

“As the project advances into the next phase of design, this much needed facility will provide residents with opportunities for recreation, learning, connection and community gathering for Calgary’s rapidly growing west side,” she said.

As of now, YMCA Calgary has had productive early talks with the municipal, provincial and federal governments. Doram said they are all proponents for new infrastructure that supports community building. The City of Calgary also recently approved its GamePlan recreation strategy that looks at boosting recreation coverage around the city.

When asked, Doram could not confirm if the government cash needed was consistent with other recently-built YMCAs. Once detailed design is completed, a precise dollar figure will be available, she said.

Northwest-Calgary’s Shane Homes YMCA, which opened in 2018 and was also designed by GEC Architecture, had a total investment of $192 million. According to the Alberta Major Projects webpage, the West District carries an estimated cost of $120 million.

YMCAs and libraries are natural partners: Officials

Both Doram and Sarah Meilleur, CEO of Calgary Public Library, agreed that it’s hard to find a better partnership than YMCAs and libraries have built.

“It’s a natural fit to have families and community come, they take their kids to swim lessons, then they head over to the library for story time and to check out books,” Meilleur said.

Three new libraries are currently under construction, the Belmont Library and fieldhouse, the Walden library and firehall and the Symons Valley Library. Meilleur said that having 0.3 square feet of library per citizen in Calgary is the ultimate goal.

“We’re quite far away, (from that goal), but we’re getting there. We’re adding a 15,000 square foot library, a 10,000 square foot library and a 10,000 (square foot) library currently. This (West District library) will be another 9,000 square feet to serve Calgarians.”

For Andrew Tankard, a partner with GEC Architecture, both YMCAs and libraries are far more than walls, floors and ceilings.

“These buildings are really about people and building community. When you look at West District, obviously there is a new community being built here and having that community center would be a fantastic addition,” he said.

A YMCA-library partnership works just as well from a design perspective as it does in practice.

“Both the YMCA and the library fundamentally are providing services to the community, different services, but they’re very complementary,” Tankard said.

“Putting them together in the same building as a partnership really builds on that and designing a building that works for both is what we do.”

Tankard said that the library, the YMCA and Truman Homes have been working on the partnership for quite some time. Conversations have been centred on finding the right mix of uses and spaces to complement the buildings in the park around the site.

“We’ve established a vision for the facility and now it’s our chance to actually turn that vision into a building, one that the community can actually come in and use,” Tankard said.