A $61 million, privately built Burnaby complex will be headquarters for Canada's national women's soccer team, instead of the University of B.C.'s National Soccer Development Centre (NSDC).
The Fortius Sport and Health training and sport medicine complex on civic land near Burnaby Lake will be the home of the Christine Sinclair-captained, London 2012 Olympics bronze medal squad through the Rio 2016 Olympics. The three-year cycle includes the FIFA 2015 Women's World Cup, which will conclude at B.C. Place Stadium.
The team was originally to become part of the Vancouver Whitecaps' $23.5 million NSDC at UBC, which includes $14.5 million in provincial funding.
The September 6, 2012-announced project, which was supposed to be finished before the 2015 Women's World Cup, is on hold while the Whitecaps and UBC finalize their agreement.
"We're hopeful we're going to conclude paperwork relatively soon and once we've done that we'll get on with the construction," said Whitecaps' president Bob Lenarduzzi. "We don't really have a firm timeline on it, in the meantime we'll carry on doing what we're doing on the temporary surface we're on and the changing rooms (in Thunderbird Arena)."
A request to interview UBC athletic director Ashley Howard was not fulfilled. Spokesman Dan Elliott said UBC's partnership has only been with the Whitecaps, but he wouldn't comment on the project's delay.
UBC's sports medicine faculty was denied a bid for room in the planned NSDC field house and many of its top sports physicians are located at Fortius, which includes 60 rooms of on-site accommodation for up to 120 athletes, coaches and team staff.
Though it is open, that facility won't be complete until early 2015 and many of UBC's top sports physicians are located at Fortius, which includes 60 rooms of on-site accommodation for up to 120 athletes, coaches and team staff.
"The completion dates (at UBC) are a little bit late, there's a challenge on whether or not we could actually house a team in a hotel right next to your training facility; we have that here with medical staff, sports science staff," said coach John Herdman. "As well we're putting offices in here, where our staff will be housed."
Fortius has synthetic turf pitches on-site, but Herdman is hopeful the team can also train when needed on the NSDC's grass fields when those are ready.
Fortius founder Scott Cousens said the move to Fortius was enabled, in part, with funding from high performance sport charity B2Ten to augment the Canadian Soccer Association.
"It's difficult for them to go anywhere else and have everything at their fingertips," Cousens said.
