The St. Albert Soccer Association’s field of dreams is becoming a necessity as the sport’s popularity only continues to grow in the region.
A report presented to the City of Edmonton’s Community and Public Services Committee last Monday showed that all soccer facilities within the municipality, both boarded and non-boarded, are at capacity.
The report identified the Field of Dreams project, as well as a few others, as potential ways help alleviate the pressures on current facilities.
This is good news for SASA, which is looking to build a new full-sized indoor soccer facility in partnership with the City of Edmonton and the City of St. Albert.
“When (the City of Edmonton) talks about soccer centres they’re starting to talk about ours as being part of their overall plan,” said Bruce Ferguson, co-chair of the Field of Dreams committee.
SASA started the Field of Dreams project four years ago in response to the critical shortage of indoor turf space in the region.
SASA’s indoor program has been running at full capacity for the past three years with teams U14 and older required to play home and away matches in Edmonton and other cities.
Last season some SASA teams drove to Red Deer to play against other Edmonton teams, since Edmonton is also short on indoor turf space.
In fact, the Edmonton Interdistrict Youth Soccer Association, one of two youth associations in Edmonton where St. Albert players play, was short 130 games slots per week for the 2015-16 indoor season. That equates to 11,700 hours of field time.
Space is becoming such an issue that for the first time, there has been talk of capping participation in indoor youth and adult soccer programs, said Craig Cameron, the SASA board member responsible for the Field of Dreams project.
“Our numbers continue to increase but the space is still limited,” he said. “We’ve been able to juggle things around up until this point, but for the first time in our 50-plus history we’re looking at capping enrolments for our program.”
The Field of Dreams project is intended to be a partnership between the City of St. Albert, the City of Edmonton and SASA.
SASA plans to bring its business case to council in the fall, with hopes of obtaining a Memorandum of Understanding between both municipalities and the soccer association by the end of the year.
The site identified by the soccer association is a piece of orphaned land located northwest of the Anthony Henday and owned by the City of Edmonton. It is also part of the land St. Albert has offered to annex, due to servicing difficulties.
“We haven’t committed the land, but we are saying that it’s a good spot for a regional facility,” Roger Jevne, director of integrated infrastructure services at the City of Edmonton. “We think there is a lot of merit in trying to find a way to work together.”
The building will feature a regulation-sized soccer pitch, two full-sized gym courts, 12 dressing rooms, food and beverage services, an office, storage space, retail rentals, including sport therapy and fitness, a community boardroom, formal press areas, spectator seating, ample parking and eventually the addition of four to six outdoor turf fields.
The facility would be the first full-sized indoor soccer field in the province. Current non-boarded artificial turf facilities can only accommodate game-play between teams of up to nine players.
The Scottish United Soccer Association is also preparing a business case for a full-sized indoor artificial turf field in the south of Edmonton.
The projects are not mutually exclusive, said Ferguson.
“Even with Scottish coming online … there’s still so much demand for facilities,” he said.
