The Township of Esquimalt is one step closer towards building its first artificial turf field at an estimated cost of $4.6 million.
Council unanimously voted Monday night in support of a motion that staff create a business proposal and draft agreements in preparation for an all-weather turf field at Esquimalt High School.
Esquimalt is the only core municipality in the capital region that doesn’t have an all-weather field, said Coun. Ken Armour, adding the current grass field has poor drainage and is unplayable after rain.
“It really cuts into the athletic opportunities for our kids and it forces them, frankly, to go to other fields,” Armour said. “It isn’t in alignment with our climate-change goals either, because they’re having to drive all around Greater Victoria to find a field that they will be able to play on during the winter.”
Staff are now preparing joint-use agreements with School District 61 as well as drafting a business case for the construction and operation of the turf field, which would be available for community use outside school hours.
The business case is expected to come before council in September, with other documents coming later in the fall. Construction could begin 12 to 18 months after approval, a staff report said.
Community members have been advocating for a turf field in Esquimalt for more than a decade and have already raised about $1 million toward construction costs.
“We’ve got an amazing partnership here. It’s not only the township — we’ve got the Songhees First Nation, School District 61, Gorge Soccer, and the James Bay Athletic Association are all partners in trying to establish the field,” Armour said.
The campaign for a turf field in Esquimalt stumbled in 2019 when the group submitted an unsuccessful provincial and federal infrastructure grant application.
But while that grant isn’t open this year, Esquimalt will be looking toward other federal or provincial funding opportunities to make up the remaining $3.6 million, Armour said, adding that governments often look at partnerships and collaboration as a basis for supporting a grant.
Esquimalt High alumnus Tom Woods has led annual fundraising efforts at Esquimalt Ribfest for the field since 2013. He said he remembers being eight or nine years old and waiting to find out on Saturdays whether the fields would be rained out.
“I know that a place like Esquimalt, like any municipal government, gets pulled in all sorts of directions for funding,” Woods said. “But I really do think this is long overdue.”
Armour said Woods has been one of the most “passionate and longstanding” volunteer committee members advocating for the field. “He definitely deserves a lot of credit for keeping this alive and continuing to drive it forward.”
In February, Woods wrote a letter imploring council to consider using some of the $4.7 million no-strings-attached funding the municipality received from the B.C.’s Growing Communities fund for the field, which had been stalled since 2019.
Armour said he would give “serious consideration” to using that fund when the business case returns to council in the fall.
As for Woods, he said: “If we get this thing put together before I’m pushing up daisies, I’ll be pretty happy.”
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