Before the end of this decade, the growing Lougheed Town Centre district will see a brand new and significantly expanded community and recreation centre to serve the increased demand from its growing population from new developments across the northeast quadrant of Burnaby, as well as in neighbouring Coquitlam.
This will be a complete redevelopment of the City of Burnaby’s existing 1980-built Cameron Recreation Centre and Library, which permanently closed earlier in August 2024 to prepare for its demolition in September 2024 and the start of major construction activities this winter.
Following Burnaby City Council’s major contract award for the project earlier this summer to Graham Construction & Engineering, the project’s construction is expected to cost about $280.4 million.
Graham Construction’s latest contract award is worth $192 million, including a $10 million contingency fund for unexpected costs, which builds on the initial $75 million contract awarded in July 2023 to conduct planning work. When GST is accounted for, it adds another $13.35 million.
The detailed cost estimate of the design by Diamond Schmitt Architects was originally pegged at $297 million almost exactly a year ago. The current $267 million figure follows some value engineering work since September 2023 to reduce the cost by $40 million to $257 million, while also including a $10 million contingency.
These costs do not include a future cost of about $15 million for the new centre’s furniture, fixtures, and equipment.
Site of the existing/future Cameron Community Centre. (Google Maps)
Existing condition of Cameron Recreation Complex at 9523 Cameron Street, Burnaby. (Google Maps)
Existing condition:
Site of the existing/future Cameron Community Centre. (Google Maps)
Future condition:
2023 concept of Cameron Community Centre. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Burnaby)
The development site, replacing the existing centre, is at 9523 Cameron Street — located at Cameron Park, immediately northwest of the City of Lougheed shopping centre (Lougheed Mall).
Even with value engineering, the future complex with a total building floor area of 238,000 sq ft will still be four times larger than the existing centre, which is aging, deemed insufficient for the long-term needs of the area, and has not seen reinvestment over the decades.
The new three-storey building will contain a two-storey library (nearly four times the size of the existing library), an aquatic centre (six-lane 25-metre lap pool, leisure pool with a lazy river, and hot tubs), a FIBA-standard basketball court gymnasium, a three-lane indoor walking and running track, a fitness gym, fitness and indoor cycling studios, multi-purpose rooms, banquet facilities, a community kitchen, cafe with an outdoor patio, music lesson studios, seniors lounge, and pre-school and childminding rooms with indoor and outdoor play areas.
This facility provides a new additional aquatic centre for Burnaby, as the existing community centre does not have such facilities.
2023 concept of Cameron Community Centre. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Burnaby)
2023 concept of Cameron Community Centre. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Burnaby)
The complex will be a hybrid mass timber and steel structure, and it will also feature a green roof and rooftop solar panels. Two underground levels will contain 288 vehicle parking stalls.
Both the new Cameron Community Centre and new Burnaby Lake Recreation Complex, which began construction earlier in August 2024, are expected to reach completion and open in 2028.
Until the new centre is ready, the City will operate a temporary Cameron Community Centre within a major vacant space inside the City of Lougheed mall. The temporary Cameron Library at the mall just opened, while the temporary community and recreation centre uses will open on September 3, 2024.
The City of Burnaby anticipates the new Cameron Community Centre alone will have an annual operating and maintenance cost of $7.3 million upon opening, which will result in an estimated property tax increase of 2.1%.
2023 concept of Cameron Community Centre. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Burnaby)
2023 concept of Cameron Community Centre. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Burnaby)
The municipal government is currently at a cross-roads over drastically increased capital costs for its new community and recreation centre projects due to market inflation. It already scaled back the new Burnaby Lake Recreation Complex considerably to cut costs, and earlier this week City Council directed City staff to also consider a redesign of the new Confederation Park Community Centre as part of an effort to cut the project’s costs.
As well, according to City staff, due to the provincial government’s new legislation requiring municipal governments to adopt the new more predictable Amenity Cost Charge (ACC), replacing previous funding tools that collect fees from developers to fund such community amenity projects, there is currently a funding gap of $31.2 million for building the $215-million new Confederation Park Community Centre. City staff assert that future projects are challenged by the use of the ACC.
Burnaby is currently leading Metro Vancouver with its building boom over the coming years of new major community and recreation centre projects to better accommodate the needs of its growing population from immense densification.