With the arrival of spring, people are now making use of Surrey’s new sports stadium at Bear Creek Park.
The 2,200-seat grandstand was constructed where wooden bleachers once stood, on the east side of the track.
Under a blue sky Friday (March 15), track-walkers climbed the concrete stairs and stopped to rest on the silver metal seats of Bear Creek Stadium, to be used for track and field, football and other sports and events at the park.
Plans for the city’s “destination athletics centre” began to take shape five years ago, in 2019. Now that the grandstand is complete, track renovation work will happen this spring, with project completion targeted for this fall.
The grandstand has permanent seating for 2,200 people (two-thirds covered) and possible expansion of another 1,000 temporary seats.
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Originally, the new facility was to include a synthetic turf field, but grass will remain in the oval.
Stadium construction began in the fall of 2022. Richmond-based Heatherbrae Builders pitched the lowest bid to build the grandstand, and Surrey city council approved the construction contract in July 2022. The bid amount was $23,294,250 — a few million dollars lower than the initial $27.5 million project budget.
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