The new artificial turf field at the Genesis Centre in Calgary officially opened on Sunday.
Funding for the $6-million project, which has been under construction since April, came from the centre, city and province.
According to the city, the field is the first of its kind in northeast Calgary and will replace the south natural turf field at the Genesis Centre. The project also includes rehabilitation of the north natural turf field.
“One of the great things that we do here at the Genesis Centre is we design all of our spaces to be multiuse, so this is a soccer field, this is a lacrosse field — you name it. We can play all kinds of things on here,” said Sherry King, executive director of the Genesis Centre.
“We hope that this is a legacy piece for our community to come out, be healthy, be active and be inclusive.
“Now we have this beautiful outdoor space where we can just have more people here, have more people active, more people introduced to things that they might have not ever gotten to see or be part of before.”
The centre chose artificial turf because it needed something that would be “high level… for all kinds of sports,” tournaments and community events.
“It poured rain about an hour ago, absolutely poured, and right now, the field is completely dry. The great thing about an artificial turf field is people can come out here about half an hour after it rains, so it really prevents that downtime that you get with natural turf,” King explained on Sunday.
Coun. George Chahal said opening the field brings a smile to his face.
“I’m just so happy to know that so many kids in our community are going to have the same opportunities as kids all over the city,” he said.
“Youth in our community for too long have not had access to good quality sports fields in northeast Calgary.”
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