Members from St. Albert Soccer Association (SASA) addressed council Tuesday afternoon, requesting city funds to help construct a new indoor soccer facility.
SASA board of directors member Steve Houle addressed council, pleading the case for the association. SASA currently has around 5,000 members, but the lack of suitable play spaces is causing them to cap some participation.
"We are in a position where we are capping youth participation because we simply do not have facilities or fields," Houle said. "We've had situations where two St. Albert teams actually drive to Red Deer to play a game. Absolutely ridiculous."
They believe that because of that lack of indoor space, especially with it being winter for six months of the year, there will be interest.
"I know as a soccer coach, I can never get time anywhere. There's just a lack of capacity. So this thing will be full from day one," he said.
The proposed seven-a-side facility would be placed between SASA's current facility and St. Albert Rugby Club. Houle was requesting a city grant of $1.5 million, and SASA would be responsible for paying the remainder of the debt service. He told council the two options would be an up front payment of a $1.5 million grant, or monthly payments over 30 years until the debt is extinguished. The total cost for the facility as well as artificial turf for their field is an estimated $6.9 million with a 4.5 per cent financing cost. The building would be city owned and operated and leased to SASA.
Coun. Sheena Hughes questioned why come to the city, versus seeking out conventional financing. Houle said he is working under the assumption that SASA , being a non-profit organization, would make it more difficult to finance conventionally and said they hadn't sought it out at all.
Their hope is for the new facility to be open within a year following council approval. The city's Chief Administrative Officer, Bill Fletcher, told council that it would be unlikely that approval could happen by the summer, like SASA was hoping, unless council wanted to expedite it with a notice of motion. The city would likely require council approval of a borrowing bylaw.
Among concerns around suitable parking, which Houle and SASA President Kevin Jones said they were willing to work with administration on, Coun. Mike Killick also raised the concern that it being a city-owned facility could mean their own requirements could drive up the price.
St. Albert's director of recreation and parks Daniele Podlubny said the proposed arrangement was certainly "untraditional" in how they typically form agreements with their local non-profits.
"This is something we'd have to take away and explore a little bit in terms of what our expectations would be if we were going to be owners of this facility," Podlubny said. "We have other buildings that we own that are run by not-for-profits in the community," she said, noting the St. Albert Curling Club as an example. She said the key differences were in how those buildings were developed, and called SASA proposal "a bit of a different format for us."
Coun. Ken MacKay said it's something he'd love to support, he'd just need to know the mechanics of it.
St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said that this was a great opportunity to continue to support indoor soccer in the city, noting that the community amenities site in Chérot does not have any soccer field in that facility.
Coun. Natalie Joly did submit a notice of motion at the end of the meeting, directing administration to better define the cost of the soccer facility to include the long-term capital implications from a city perspective and return to council by Q4 2025 with an update and recommendation, if possible. The issue could return to council by July 15, their final meeting before the summer break.
