UPDATE – South Winnipeg Recreation Campus

Dec 30, 2024

UPDATE: Public Information Session, Saturday – March 22nd Please see EVENT DETAILS

Watch your mail for a print flyer update on the South Winnipeg Recreation Campus. The flyer was mailed to all residents in the Waverley West ward, and was to be sent early November – but was delayed because of the Canada Post strike. The mailer has now been ‘mailed’!

The flyer provides a brief overview – I’ll provide a bit more detail here:

MASTER SITE PLAN:

The attached image shows the final master site plan. This will be a regional recreation campus, serving the southwest quadrant of Winnipeg. The recreation campus is being constructed in the neighbourhood of Bison Run, on ~ 19 acres (7.5 hectares) and is located beside Pembina Trails elementary and high schools. The recreation campus will be constructed in phases. Funding has been secured for Phase 1.

Phase 1 (dark orange) includes:

Gymnasiums
Multipurpose rooms
Indoor walking track & fitness area
Child care centre (funded & operated by the Province)
Outdoor spray pad

Future phase will include:

Aquatics centre
Library
Ice Arenas (two potential site locations)
Athletic fields and courts

FUNDING:

The funding for Phase 1 has been secured ($94.02 million):

$49.20 million – City of Winnipeg

$31.66 million – Government of Canada
$13.16 million – Province of Manitoba

In addition, under the same funding grant, the Province of Manitoba is providing funding for:

$24.75 million for the Childcare Centre located in the Recreation Campus and a Vocational Room attached to Pembina Trails Collegiate

Public funding reports are presented to City Council quarterly. The attached bar chart provides a good visual breakdown.

NEXT STEPS:

Early 2025 – public open house showing details and visuals on interior & exterior design
Early 2026 – construction starts
Late 2027 – recreation campus opens

COMMENTARY:

The Waverley West ward has a 2024 Stats Canada estimated population of 63,996 people. The southwest quadrant of Winnipeg has seen the largest population increase in the last 5+ years, directly due to Federal and Provincial immigration policies. This rapid growth was not anticipated by the City of Winnipeg, and we are now ‘catching up’ in providing key city services. In addition, the site of the recreation campus was a prairie field and had to undergo an extensive planning and servicing process. Complicating matters was land acquisition and rising costs of construction.

Securing land, servicing, funding, design and construction for the recreation campus, and for the permanent fire/paramedics station, have been my top ward priorities since being elected, and to be frank – its been a long complicated journey! This short post covers 11 years of work. I have a City documented, year by year detailed overview of the entire process see history .

And please know I will be hosting a heck of a large ‘sod turning party’ when we break ground for construction next year!

For background and other details see: https://engage.winnipeg.ca/south-winnipeg-recreation-campus?tool=news_feed#tool_tab