At least one local sports group is noticing an increase in the number of registrations coming from north Edmonton since the northwest leg of Anthony Henday Drive opened last year.
According to Impact director Gilles Prefontaine, the St. Albert Soccer Association (SASA) is seeing more Edmonton boys trying out for its club teams since the new addition to the ring road opened at the beginning of November.
"I think it's been growing. Part of that is we're into a bit of a bigger world but definitely when I look at our tryouts for indoor soccer, we probably had a good 20 per cent increase for trying out for club soccer specifically," Prefontaine said. "I would say all that growth is from boys in north Edmonton."
The new leg of the Henday has been described as a potential "game changer" for St. Albert, opening up the city to new investment because of easier and speedier access. A report from the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) has consistently ranked the city seventh out of 10 for potential real estate investment because of its proximity to the Henday.
Prefontaine believes that increased access is starting to pay off, at least for SASA.
"What we've seen is that we're positioned in such a way that Servus Credit Union Place and the Riel fields are more accessible to north Edmonton than many fields in Edmonton are, specifically in club soccer," he said. "Specifically in club soccer, we're seeing more families look at us as a place with great fields. It's drawing people for sports into the City of St. Albert."
Prefontaine acknowledged that SASA is unique amongst the St. Albert sporting community because its residency rules are not as restrictive as those for baseball or hockey.
"People understand and see the value of the soccer program in St. Albert," Prefontaine said.
St. Albert Minor Baseball (SAMBA) just opened registration for the spring this week. While it's too early to tell if the Henday will have an impact on the number of Edmonton players looking to run the bases here, president Ed Ewasiuk is looking forward to seeing some numbers after a month or two.
"Every year we do get some from Edmonton, depending on the level they register for. Typically at the house league level, we've always had kids from the Castledowns area play in our league," Ewasiuk said. "We probably won't see any results for at least another month."
There will likely be no impact on St. Albert Minor Hockey (SAMHA), according to a voicemail left by president David Bell, because of the specific boundaries set by minor hockey on who can play where. He added the Henday will make it easier for teams to move between facilities.
"Our boundaries haven't changed so we won't see that influx from north Edmonton," he said.
Memberships
It's been too early to tell if the Henday extension has had any impact on memberships at Servus Place, but facility director Diane Enger expects it will take a few more months to see any kind of trend.
"We're seeing really consistent trends from last year to this year from users from the Edmonton area," Enger said. "We haven't seen significant growth but it might be too hard to tell."
The facility tracks memberships through postal codes on an ongoing basis. The facility and city are planning a heavy marketing blitz into north Edmonton this coming spring to try and boost its membership, which would help offset the ongoing operating deficit.
"We know our membership has traditionally been in a 10-kilometre radius, so we will definitely look within that range to draw on it," Enger said.
Memberships have seldom grown above 8,000 per year. Boosting that number closer to the 12,000 mark is the target for the city, but reaching that mark would also mean expanding the facility, according to acting city manager Chris Jardine.
"If we had 12,000, the fitness centre could not handle that. We would have a real service problem," Jardine said.
The city does have expansion plans based on reaching certain membership levels, but none of those options are cheap, Jardine said.
"The reality of it is we're not going to do anything for a couple of hundred thousand. It's going to be $1 million-plus."
