Surrey's southern suburb has built world-class sporting facilities and secured some major events, but it lacks hotel and meeting rooms, according to the local business community.
They say that could derail South Surrey's aspirations of becoming a sports mecca.
"There has been no major hotel built in South Surrey–White Rock in years and years and years," said Cliff Annable, executive director of the South Surrey and White Rock Chamber of Commerce. "It's needed badly."
Vancouver has a range of top-notch meeting places, including the Hyatt Regency Vancouver and the Vancouver Convention Centre.
"Well, in South Surrey–White Rock where do people go when the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation has its annual gala?" Annable asked. "They go to the Centennial Arena in White Rock. There's no place big enough for us to have a major event. The arena is … decorated but it's an arena."
He said existing meeting rooms can hold no more than 200 people, which is a fraction of the 800 that could have been accommodated had Gateway Casinos and Entertainment Ltd.'s $100 million hotel/convention centre/casino proposal been approved.
But Gateway's proposed entertainment complex, which was to have included a 60,000-square-foot gaming area, 200-room hotel and a 27,000-square-foot convention centre at 10th Avenue and 168th Street, was rejected by Surrey's council a year ago.
The casino plan drew the most flak amid concerns it would bring social problems such as gambling addiction and crime to the area.
And the company has no plans to revisit the plan.
"Last year, Gateway worked with community stakeholders throughout South Surrey to develop a project that we hoped would meet the needs of this growing community," said Gateway's public relations director, Tanya Gabara.
"We were disappointed that city council found our proposed entertainment complex … not to be the right fit, but we respect that decision. While Gateway remains committed to growing our operations, we don't currently have any plans for South Surrey."
The City of Surrey launched a new sport tourism strategy in 2013 designed to establish Surrey as a premier destination for regional and international sporting events.
As a result, the 10-day 2014 Scotiabank Canadian Open Fastpitch International Championship is scheduled to be held July 11 to 21 at Sunnyside Park, which has six new softball diamonds, as well as the Cloverdale Athletic Park.
Surrey will also host the 2016 Women's World Fastpitch Championships, where more than 30 countries will be represented.
But Annable said players, their families and sports fans won't be able to find hotels nearby.
He added that there's "big business now" with sports teams coming to the various tournaments, and they'd be more likely to patronize restaurants and other local businesses if they were staying in Surrey.
New City Hall opens, but completion still six to eight weeks behind schedule
Surrey's new city hall opened on February 17, but the building isn't finished, even after two years of construction.
"In the grand scheme of things, we're probably six to eight weeks behind where we originally scheduled us to be," said Coun. Bruce Hayne, explaining that a number of unforeseen obstacles caused the lengthy delays in the construction of the building.
"There was a Telus [TSX:T] trunk line that needed to be moved during the excavation portion of the project, and that caused a couple of weeks [delay]."
He added that the designers had run into some issues with the hall's exterior cladding.
Despite the slowed development, Hayne said the city opted to extend the time to build the hall instead of rush the crew to finish the construction on time.
"What we didn't want to do is put a huge full court press on everything and have all sorts of ridiculous overtime and things like that, when there was no urgent pressure to get out of the existing city hall."
As part of the new city hall's $97 million budget, council accounted for unexpected expenses and delays with a $10 million contingency fund, to be used as a buffer only if necessary.
"Some of those expenses would be at the expense of the contractor because there would be penalties for delays," added Hayne. "All of that's going to have to be worked out with the contractor and with Surrey City Development Corp., because they were managing the project build."
A few staff members will remain at the old city hall to take care of smaller services such as dog licensing before making the move.
Hayne noted that council will hold its next few public hearings at the old hall because the audio and TV systems in the new council chambers won't be ready until mid-March. He said the first meeting at the new hall will be held on March 31.
