Gimli council launched its vision for improved accessibility at the Gimli Recreation Centre and is inviting the public to provide feedback to its new Recreation Campus Master Plan through an online survey.
Gimli council released a proposed Gimli Recreation Campus Master Plan last Friday and accompanying survey. The proposal does not include a new fitness centre
A site plan and the survey were posted on the municipality’s Facebook page last Friday.
Council had hired Scatliff + Miller + Murray landscape architects to produce a plan to guide future improvements at the recreation centre. The plan doesn’t provide construction timelines or costs.
The Recreation Campus Master Plan looks at how “people move through the site,” and represents a “long term vision for improving safety, accessibility and the overall experience at the Gimli Recreation Centre, Aquatic Centre, Skate Park and the future Recreation Youth Hub,” according to the survey’s preface.
An accompanying layout of features at the proposed site shows 44 parking stalls for staff located behind the recreation centre building, 77 public parking stalls between the recreation centre and the outdoor pool, and 148 more public parking stalls (for a total of 225 public spots) in what is now an empty field. There’s also an unspecified number of parking spots at the skateboard park.
In 2024, a majority of council had approved the construction of a new fitness centre in the spot where an outdoor skating rink and a recreation youth hub (i.e., youth centre) are now proposed to be built. The fitness centre had been pegged at around $950,000 in 2024.
The campus proposal includes a circular drive in front of the recreation centre to improve traffic flow and a multipurpose path running adjacent to Centennial Road.
The architects provided two options regarding vehicle access to Autumnwood Drive. The first option is a one-lane road for emergency or maintenance use only. The second option is a two-lane road —presumably for public traffic — that requires land acquisition from the Evergreen School Division and an alignment with the Autumnwood intersection.
The survey asks people to select what elements of the recreation campus plan are the most important to them, what proposed features of the plan they feel will benefit the community, how often they use the recreation centre, how they get there, what activities they take part in, whether they’ve had or had seen any vehicle-pedestrian conflicts, plus any ideas they want council to consider.
A number of municipal residents posted comments on social media after they viewed the campus plan proposal. One said the plan “misses the mark on what the community has been asking for” and another said it was “really disappointing to see such a lack of forward-thinking” from the municipality.
Some residents were unhappy with the number of proposed parking spaces, which may not be enough for high capacity events such as last week’s Jets Town Takeover. They also questioned why the new fitness centre is not part of the campus plan and said Gimli has long needed an indoor pool, not another outdoor skating rink.
The Express asked the RM of Gimli and council members for comment on what happened to the plan to build a new fitness centre.
Council spokesperson Christine Payne said council decided to “defer” the fitness centre pending completion of a recreation needs assessment and an updated recreation campus plan.
“The fitness centre proposal originally started as a high‑level concept, with early cost estimates in the range of $975,000 to $995,000. As council advanced the project, an architect was engaged to complete a conceptual design and preliminary costing to better understand what would be required to deliver a modern, functional facility,” said Payne.
“Through that process, council determined that the updated cost estimates exceeded expectations, and that the proposed location was not practical given site constraints and long term planning considerations. In addition, it became clear that the Recreation Campus Plan needed to be amended to reflect several evolving priorities, including identifying a more appropriate location for a future fitness centre.”
Council feels that feedback from the currently available survey regarding the campus plan will be “critical” in shaping the design, scale, timing and overall priority of a fitness centre, said Payne, and they decided to not proceed on a fitness centre that “no longer aligned with community expectations or financial comfort levels.”
“In short, the decision was not to abandon the idea of a fitness centre but to pause, reset and ensure that any future investment is well located, financially responsible and clearly supported by community input and long term planning,” she said.
She did not say what the updated cost estimate on the fitness centre was.
