The City of Surrey will partner with a city-based soccer club to lease part of a local park. The agreement could run three decades and includes the construction of a covered training facility on city land.
Surrey City Council voted to approve Corporate Report R028 at its regular council meeting Feb. 24. The report, from the Parks, Recreation, and Culture Department, recommended council enter into a “Partnering Agreement” with Surrey United Soccer Club (SUSC), which covers several areas the city will assist SUSC as they build a facility in Cloverdale Athletic Park (CAP).
The agreement allows the indoor training facility to move forward and to accommodate its planning, building, operation, and maintenance. In terms of the footprint, the new Surrey United facility will be built across 1/2 of the current gravel, all-weather field at CAP. The facility’s parking lot will be built overtop the grass football field that runs parallel to 64th Avenue, just east of the bike park.
Laurie Cavan, parks and rec. GM, authored the corporate report. She recommended council pass the “Partnering Agreement.” The greenlight now means an accompanying 30-year lease agreement will go before council at a later date.
“The essence of the partnership is that the City provides the land, in the form of a 30-year lease at a nominal rate,” Cavan wrote, “and SUSC builds and operates the covered practice facility, following a number of operating conditions outlined by the City in the Partnering Agreement and a future Lease Agreement.”
Cavan added the facility will offer a covered turf field that will be available for use 365 days a year for both Surrey United and for “the broader sports community in Cloverdale.”
She explained that “SUSC will pay the majority of costs associated with constructing and operating the covered practice facility, thus relieving the city of substantial capital and operating costs.”
Surrey United plans to pay for both the construction and operating costs by renting out the training facility and through selling advertising.
“An additional revenue stream that SUSC is counting on is the sale of naming rights of the building to a private sponsor,” Cavan noted. “While a sponsor has not yet been identified, the Partnering Agreement recognizes SUSC’s intent to sell the naming rights of the building.”
The project has been on the go for a few years now. In April, 2023, Surrey United met with the city to propose a partnership that would allow SUSC to build and run a covered training facility at CAP. A public notification period followed—from July to August, 2023—that offered any group across Surrey the chance to partner with the city on the construction of an enclosed training space.
“SUSC was the only compliant response submitted,” Cavan wrote. “Since that time, Parks staff have met with SUSC executives on several occasions to discuss their proposal and reach an agreement on design, construction, maintenance, and operational details.”
In the meantime, Surrey United has already gotten the process rolling by submitting building permit applications to the city’s Planning and Development Department.
As for the actual partnering agreement, the city will provide assistance to SUSC in several areas. It also outlines SUSC’s responsibilities for the construction, maintenance, and operation of the building. Key partnership areas include:
- a contribution of land, in the form of a Lease Agreement, for use by SUSC for a 30-year lease term for the covered practice facility;
- payment of development cost charges levied by the City, excluding those collected by the City on behalf of a third party (Metro Vancouver and TransLink), attributable to the construction of the covered practice facility;
- payment of the costs of outfitting and maintaining the interior of two external public-facing washrooms in the covered practice facility;
- payment of a portion of the cost to construct the sanitary service to the covered practice facility;
- payment of half the costs of regular maintenance and emergency work for water and sanitary services to the covered practice facility;
- provision of City staff time to work with SUSC to help guide the covered practice facility through the development review process and coordinate the use and operation of the covered practice facility with other City services or programs;
- and waiver of the City’s potential interest in any revenues collected by SUSC related to the covered practice facility.
The potential deal fulfills part of the Parks, Recreation and Culture Department's strategic plan to “work with community organizations to assist in the development of program opportunities and facilities.”
SUSC is based in Cloverdale and has thousands of members. A few years ago, the club gave just under $225,000 to help build the red fieldhouse at CAP on the corner of 64th and 168th.
Now approved, the new facility at CAP is expected to open in June of 2026.
