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With the land area of the new entertainment district now delineated, City staff will now work on creating a concept and strategy for the entertainment district, which will encourage active commercial uses on the lower floors of buildings, such as restaurants, retail, and entertainment.

New arena with a hotel, conference centre, and retail and restaurants

A report prepared by City staff for this week’s public meeting notes that the entertainment district will be anchored by a 10,000-seat indoor arena, which was first announced by Mayor Locke in early 2024 and again reaffirmed in Spring 2025 following some progress made in the preliminary design and planning process.

This venue will be a fully integrated component of a new mixed-use development. In addition to such a stadium, there will be about 100,000 sq. ft. of retail, restaurant, entertainment, and office uses, a hotel tower with 175 guest rooms and approximately 60,000 sq. ft. of ballroom, meeting, and conference facilities, and a galleria — an atrium-like enclosed promenade — between the arena and commercial uses.

“The co-location of these uses will support the viability of each component and the wrapping of the arena with commercial space, especially retail and entertainment uses, will contribute to a more active and vibrant frontage compared to a standalone arena. The co-location of the hotel and conference facilities with the arena will also allow for the arena floor to be used for trade shows and other conference events,” reads the report.

For the very first time, City staff also confirmed the proposed location of the project — specifically, on the “City-owned lands adjacent to the Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre at Tom Binnie Park.” Such a site is at the northeast corner of the intersection of University Drive and 105A Avenue, and immediately east of Whalley Athletic Park.

Existing condition:

Future condition:

BC Lions are open to relocating their training facility

Newly created preliminary conceptual artistic renderings of the development attached to the report show the mixed-use development with the arena would completely replace the BC Lions’ training facility, an adjacent soccer field, and some of the play features of Tom Binnie Park, where the recreation centre is located.

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized, BC Lions president Duane Vienneau said his team was not caught off guard by the revelation to the public, and that they are in constant communication with the City and have already been made aware of the possible siting of the arena replacing their training facility.

“We know that they like us. They want us to continue to call Surrey home. We like being there, and we’re confident we will find a solution for a new facility,” he said.

“There’s other places that you could build a new practice facility around if we had to get displaced. We’re pretty confident there’s a solution there if this is what ends up happening.”

The BC Lions’ training facility — entailing a football field, a building, and some parking space — has been at the site for the past four decades. The CFL team’s lease for the property expires in 2027.

Vienneau said while the location of the current facility is “great,” the facilities they use — especially the building — are now “really old.” Lately, even though they might not be able to enjoy the benefits over a longer period, they have been prioritizing some upgrades to ensure it better meets their needs and the standards of the CFL.

Over the decades, the central and accessible location of the training facility has also enabled fans to watch the players practice.

Daily Hive Urbanized also reached out to the City on the proposed location for the project, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Existing condition:

Future condition:

The location is strategically situated near the heart of the emerging high-density city centre, only a five-minute walk north of SkyTrain’s Gateway Station and about ten minutes south of Surrey Central Station. The Expo Line’s elevated guideway frames the development site to the west.

With its optimal public transit accessibility, the site is ideally positioned to draw spectators not only from Surrey but from across Metro Vancouver for concerts, sports events, and other major gatherings at the arena.

The preliminary design concept shown in the new artistic renderings was created by the Vancouver office of the architectural firm Perkins&Will. In 2024, the City engaged Hunden Partners, a Chicago-based entertainment and destination real estate consultancy, to conduct a preliminary market analysis and assess the feasibility of developing an indoor arena integrated into a mixed-use commercial and entertainment complex.

In November 2024, after receiving Hunden Partners’ favourable initial findings, Surrey City Council unanimously approved advancing the project to the next phase — including the preparation of a conceptual design, master plan, cost estimates, economic impact assessments, and funding and business strategies — for the proposed arena in Surrey City Centre, rather than at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds. This approval included an additional $500,000 in contract work for Hunden Strategic Partners, which subsequently engaged Perkins&Will and transportation demand consultancy Bunt & Associates as subcontractors.

Referendum suggested for 2026 to settle debate over new arena

The arena’s financial viability would likely be strengthened by the presence of an anchor professional sports team using the venue as its primary home base.

“We all want to see a vibrant city centre. The idea of an entertainment district makes sense. The best way to ensure the city and the entertainment district are successful is to ensure financial viability and that they are self-sustaining, and it cannot be a drain on the taxpayers. We have yet to see the business plan or the total cost of the arena to taxpayers,” said city councillor Mike Bose during the deliberations, before casting the sole vote against the area plan changes with an arena.

“As exciting as an arena might sound, at what cost? The cost to build and operate, who is paying the bill, and the bill for the ongoing costs? So far, only the taxpayers [are] on the hook. If something goes wrong, if there is no tenant, or there is and that tenant walks away, it is the taxpayer left on the hook.”

Following the meeting, city councillor Linda Annis, who was not present during the deliberations and vote, issued a statement reiterating some of her previous concerns over the possible financial risk to taxpayers, and suggested the municipal government should instead focus on prioritizing delivering community and recreational amenities. She also suggested the cost of the arena could reach at least $600 million.

“We’re about to become a city of one million residents, the first in our province,” said Annis. “A dynamic entertainment district should be part of our city centre, but a costly, taxpayer-funded arena is no substitute for the parks, pools, rinks and playing fields we desperately need in our local neighbourhoods. Brenda Locke’s arena has no business plan, no costing, and no guarantee that taxpayers will not be on the hook for this pricey project when costs go up.”

Annis further suggested that the decision on whether to proceed with the arena should be made by residents through a referendum question on the October 2026 civic election ballot.

During City Council’s public meeting deliberations, however, a majority of city councillors and the mayor took issue with Bose’s remarks. They emphasized that the proposed arena is a key component not only of the planned entertainment district, but also of the broader evolution of the city centre and the city as a whole. Several city councillors also noted that it would be premature to make any judgments about the arena at this stage, as the current work pertains primarily to high-level, land-use planning. Direct approvals for the arena project, they explained, and also later confirmed by City staff, would occur later, once more detailed information and analyses become available.

“This is just basically an approval of a plan and from what I understand, this is just stage one. There’s other stages we have to go to. We’re not approving any assets at this time. It’s just a plan. So I’m very supportive of an entertainment district. We need something to spruce up our downtown and I’m looking forward to the changes that are coming,” said city councillor Doug Elford.

City councillor Pardeep Kooner asserted the municipal government is already making significant investments to build new and expanded community and recreational facilities and infrastructure. During the same meeting, City Council endorsed the $56-million design of upgrading the 24 Avenue overpass across Highway 99 into an interchange, and approved a $60-million design and construction contract to expand Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre immediately north of the arena project site. This weekend, the $133-million new Cloverdale Sport & Ice Complex will officially open, and plans are underway to proceed with the additional phase of adding a third ice rink to the facility.

“There’s investments in roads, in parks that we’ve been approving so far, and there’s more to come just even today. So I think people can see that there’s a lot happening,” said Kooner.

“I think we do need to focus on all areas of the city and to make sure that people have what they need so they don’t have to leave the city, so they don’t have to go downtown Vancouver. We need to have the resources and the amenities here within our own city.”

In her closing remarks, Mayor Locke said, “We are building the next modern city in Canada. So having the vision and doing this kind of work is exactly what we need to do.”

Earlier this year, Locke said she would like to see the City move quickly on the arena project, with preliminary construction work beginning two years from now, 2027.

It is not immediately clear whether the City-owned, for-profit real estate development company will lead the project’s implementation at a later stage of planning. With a focus on optimizing City-owned lands, Surrey City Development Corporation built the nearby 3 Civic Plaza condominium, office, and hotel tower, and it is currently in the process of planning other major projects in the area, including the future Centre Block office towers with Simon Fraser University’s new medical school at Surrey Central Station and the plan for four towers with 1,800 rental homes next to Gateway Station.

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