The Bearspaw Lifestyle Centre is envisioning major changes to create new recreational and social gathering opportunities at the 40-year-old facility in west Rocky View County.
“It’s a fantastic little facility, and we are looking to do some expansion in our land area,” explained Chris Sharkey, who has been the manager of the Bearspaw Lifestyle Centre for the past five years. “We hope to make some improvements to the land east of us, and take this opportunity to create an outdoor (gathering) area which will be four seasons.”
The lifestyle centre recently received a $35,000 grant from Rocky View County’s Recreation Committee to help pay for a portion of the initial planning work to make that vision a reality, said Sharkey.
“That land (to the east), we hope will be inclusive of several kinds of items like a small town centre, an outdoor auditorium, and provide a space where people can gather for picnics and (community activities) like that,” he explained. “We also wish to construct a pathway which would hopefully be a joiner into the broader pathway system that’s happening around us between Cochrane, and Glenbow Ranch, and reaching right through to Calgary.”
Sharkey said he is hoping the planning work can get started and a business plan can be put together to begin implementing Phase One of the expansion plan in two years, with a build out date of five years currently contemplated.
“The business plan is the beginning of the whole works where we begin to suss out what the broad picture will look like,” he said.
The current facility boasts a 175-seat banquet room, a gymnasium, a multipurpose room, dance studios, and meeting rooms.
Sharkey said the expansion plan is necessary because the purpose of the lifestyle centre itself has changed in recent decades from a place dedicated to recreation to more of place for community gatherings, banquets, and corporate and public meetings.
“Over the past several years, as Calgary moves out toward us, we have had to readjust the direction that we go,” he confirmed. “We are much more focused around social gatherings and less on recreation, as we have so much recreation around us that is competing.”
To this end, the facility has hosted a popular weekly summer market in recent years, a well-attended European Christmas Market in the winter, and has increasingly brought in programming like the Rocky Mountain Symphony Orchestra to meet the social needs of the Bearspaw area.
Sharkey said it is expected that the impending expansion will do even more to provide such opportunities to the surrounding neighbourhood and other nearby communities.
“There would have to be some needs assessments to determine from the community what they would like to see in a space like that,” he said.
