A universal change room in an under-construction recreation centre is the biggest one in the city, a supervisor of the project told media on Tuesday during a tour of the west-end site. Robb Heit, a program manager for the City of Edmonton, told reporters that the 80 per cent of the change rooms at the future mistahaya wîkihk Community Recreation Centre in the Lewis Farms neighbourhood will be gender neutral, and will feature individual stalls. He said 10 per cent of them will be designated for females and the other 10 per cent for males. “This is, I believe, the largest incorporation of a universal change room in the city,” Heit said, adding such change-room setups exist at the city-run Queen Elizabeth and Borden outdoor pools. PCL Construction started work three years ago on the long-planned recreation centre, which was first proposed in 2005 and has remained as a part of the neighbourhood design plan since 2007. The recreation centre and surrounding park, located at 92 Avenue and Rosenthal Way, are expected to open in the fall of 2028. City council approved the $311-million project, which was originally pegged to cost about $90-million more, in 2019. Councillors heard earlier this year that inflation has raised the final cost to $343 million. Reporters also heard that both of the facility’s National Hockey League-sized rinks will be able to host sledge hockey, with transparent panels used at the bench areas to allow players to see the ice surface. Heit said a glass curtain wall between the two arenas – one will have a capacity of 500 spectators, the other 250 – will be installed to reduce noise, such as whistle-blowing by referees, between them. The recreation centre will also include an aquatic centre, a fitness facility, a mid-sized library branch, a workout area, two gymnasiums with a running track, an urban plaza, and multi-use and commercial tenant spaces. The City of Edmonton last opened such a facility last year, when the Coronation Park Sports and Recreation Centre came online. The city opened three large recreation centres over a four-year period in the early 2010s: the southwest Terwillegar (now Booster Juice) in early 2011, and the southeast Meadows and northeast Clareview in late 2014. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Dave Mitchell
