EDMONTON – Edmonton could become the first Canadian city with an international-calibre indoor velodrome, after a council committee recommended Tuesday spending $8.5 million to design the project.
The facility, intended to replace the crumbling outdoor Argyll velodrome, would be part of a $97-million Coronation Park recreation centre that would also include a jogging track, fitness centre and link to Peter Hemingway pool.
“This is a project that I’m really passionate about. It’s really important to see it done,” said Tara Whitten, an Edmonton member of the bronze-medal winning women’s pursuit team at the London Olympics.
“I just know the impact it can have on the community, from young kids to elite athletes and families.”
Whitten has had to do much of her training in Los Angeles, which has North America’s only 250-metre indoor cycling track built to world competitive standards.
She and other Canadian racers would love to be able to train in Edmonton, she said.
The facility might also attract competitors from other countries, particularly triathletes, because nowhere else in North America has indoor cycling, swimming and running, said David Embury of the Argyll Velodrome Association.
His group has been working for six years to develop a covered velodrome.
They’ve been looking for a location since plans to build it on the site of the current structure beside the Mill Creek ravine were derailed by a 2009 court decision over the zoning process.
Alan Schietzsch, of the Woodcroft Community League, beside Coronation Park, said they’re happy to see the recreation centre go ahead as long as the aging Coronation arena is torn down to save green space and solve traffic issues.
“We’re thrilled. For our community to host a world-class facility would be absolutely awesome,” he said.
“The kids in our community, if they’re riding bikes and staying safe in winter, we like that.”
Councillors must still pass the design spending during this fall’s budget debates.
The velodrome association and the Edmonton Triathlon Academy have agreed to raise about $25 million for the project, which likely won’t start construction if the rest of the budget is approved until at least 2015.
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