Langdon seeks rec facility

Times Reporter 

 

The North Bow Community Facility Board (NBCFB) is hosting an open house in Langdon on Sept. 14 to discuss their project, and future fundraising initiatives. 

The board was formed in 2003 to develop recreation facilities in the Bow North area, primarily Langdon. In 2006 a 45-acre site was purchased by the NBCFB thanks to the generous support and a donation by Encana. 

Since that time there has been a lot of behind the scenes work being done in collaboration with the Rocky View School Division and Rocky View County about solidification of the site and what was needed for the school board basically to approve the site master plan. 

The master plan is to see the land as the future home of Langdon’s high school, a recreation centre and various outdoor playing surfaces. Now with that being done the board is able to move forward with the actual specific fundraising campaign for the recreational usage of the land site. 

“What the North Bow wants basically in the end is to have a facility that’s usable not only during daytime for the students of the school, but also open to the public as well in the evening times,” said NBCFB Vice-President Corrie Carrobourg.

Langdon is under-facilitated said Carrobourg, which means they don’t have large recreational spaces, whether they are indoor or outdoor, that can facilitate the programs being run in town. He said Langdon has a huge population of children from the ages of three to 12 and what has happened is a lot of the minor programs don’t have the ability to grow because there are no facilities to offer to grow them. 

Carrobourg said by the time a kid hits the age of 12, if they’re playing competitive soccer, then they have to travel into Calgary or somewhere else to be able to do so because Langdon doesn’t have a soccer field of high enough quality that would allow a competitive team to be playing on it. 

The same goes with baseball, there isn’t enough available diamond space to see the groups grow with the youth baseball program and the adult slo-pitch.  

“That’s where you start to see the tie in with our project, (it) is to offer these programs and continue the ability to continue to grow (and) to foster the older age ranges,” said Carrobourg.

What is being named Phase 2 of the project will see a $5 million fundraising campaign take place. 

There are four elements to that campaign. Site access is one, which includes site grading and stormwater management and other site preparation development is expected to cost around $2,735,000. The creation of the four ball diamonds is expected to cost $1.2 million. Three soccer fields will be approximately $900,000, and compensations for wetland on the property site is about $165,000.

Starting this week the NBCFB can be found knocking on neighbours’ doors looking for input. 

“We’re doing a community survey … we’re going to be hitting doors on Sept. 3 and we’re going to run and hopefully be done the community by Sept. 12,” said Carrobourg. 

“What that survey is, is to basically do a few different things. One it’s to inform as many different residents as we possibly can about the project and about the North Bow Community Facility Board. It’s also to be gathering information about corporate opportunities that the residents may have.”

The first objective is to try to develop more relationships in the corporate world with various companies that have ties to Langdon through the residents. Carrobourg is hoping they’ll be able to get in touch with multiple people that have access to corporate funds through their companies, or maybe insight on whom the board may be able to speak to for funding. NBCFB hopes to be able to offer the corporate side a way to join on with the project in a gift giving way. 

At the open house the board plans to have information available to present to the public and kick off the campaign. The Calgary Stampede mobile stage will be set up and local kids groups will be making presentations on the stage throughout the afternoon.

“We also plan to have a bunch of information about the board and the project set up within the field house on that same day at the same time as the activities are going on, on the stage,” said Carrobourg.

“So anybody that wants to learn more, if they don’t know anything about the project, can come into the Field House and we’ll have all of our information set up in there for them to take a look at.”

If you can’t make it to the open house but would still like more information, visit the NBFCB website at http://northbowrec.ca. The open house will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Langdon Field House on Sept. 14.