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Cranbrook, BC (March 10, 2025) – Public consultation on available spaces for a new facility for the Gymnastics Club with the potential for co-location with child care services will be rolled out in the coming weeks, following direction from Council at their regular meeting on Monday, March 10, 2025.

In a recent letter to Council, the Gymnastics Club requested space on City land to construct a new facility while also requesting the desire to co-locate with child care, as there are synergies that they would like to take advantage of. 

In early 2024, the Government of BC offered grants to build child care buildings covering costs for design and construction provided that the municipality provides the land, which the City applied for with Council offering space in Gyro Park as part of the application. This request from the Gymnastics Club creates a new option to the discussion on revisiting the current approved location for a new child care facility in Gyro Park.  

In discussions with the Province on the grant funding recently, there have been no decisions made as of yet. If the City wished to request a location change, the Province would consider it if the new location were similar to Gyro, however, a significantly different site would not be allowed.

“The City simply cannot afford to build large new recreational facilities, as the gymnastics club is proposing. The increasing costs to maintain the existing buildings we have present a significant challenge while trying to keep tax rates as low as possible. Like the soccer dome proposal from a few years ago, this is another interesting idea," says Mayor Wayne Price. "The City is open to proposals where other groups are willing to cover the costs of building and maintaining a large recreational facility, with no burden on taxpayers, to enhance the quality of life for Cranbrook residents. However, the reality is that new recreational facilities would not be feasible if it were solely up to the City. This Council is committed to greater community engagement, so the next step in the process will be public consultation to gather input from residents.”

Results from the recent Budget 2025 Citizen Survey undertaken last fall, indicated public support (87% of respondents) to lease, sell or rent underutilized city owned land, reducing maintained grass areas to reduce costs, however, reducing greenspace is often opposed.

After staff review, several options have been identified as potential locations:

Gymnastics Club Building Location

Balment Park (possibly co-located with child care).

The gymnastics club letter as a proposal, requested co-location with child care. The only site available that would fit this is the Balment Park site. This site is lower cost to develop with no foreseen impact to the taxpayer for development. It would reduce costs of the existing park lawn maintenance, and it would centralize all the large recreation buildings to this part of the City. The child care facilities would also be world class for location near many excellent forms of recreation and would be very desirable. The loss of greenspace could be a concern with the public.

Old Library Site Next to Western Financial Place

This site was a former library building site, so there would be no conflict with underground services. The senior's fitness equipment, which is failing, and replacement parts are difficult to source, is planned to be removed likely this summer. The children's playground is on its last legs due to the abuse and vandalism, and the gazebo currently is nothing but a weather shelter as the picnic tables were damaged. Building on location will help change the negative use current trends that we see at Western Financial Place in unmanaged spaces.

Moir North Gymnastics Option



This site would cost taxpayers approximately $2.77m to develop a serviced lot with a new road for access, but it would create the ability to have other available large, serviced recreational facility lots with that same road access for other recreation facilities to develop going forward.

This site is a bit outside of the current City recreation center but could develop a new site for future growth and build on the existing amenities at Moir Park.

Childcare Location Options

Gyro Park location is a quiet park location, in an area of Cranbrook that needs child care, and would reduce the maintained grass area of park that has comparatively less use and would also reduce annual park lawn maintenance costs.

 
This site has had some negative feedback due to loss of greenspace in this area of the City.

Balment Park (would require approval by the Province, as the Gyro Park location is approved as part of the provincial grant application, which has not yet been confirmed. Province MUST agree to move the location in the existing grant application).

This alternate location option reduces the maintained area of a greenspace and would reduce annual maintenance costs. Similar to Gyro Park, this potential option will likely also experience public opposition due to loss of greenspace.

This site is located near all major recreation such as swimming, skating, soccer, and possibly gymnastics, as examples. It would be a premium location for a desirable childcare with recreation amenities nearby.

This site map shows if this option is child care only and no gymnastics club building, or if the gymnastics club is able to locate next to Western Financial Place in the old library site across the parking lot.

More information will be coming out in the next few weeks about how the survey will be conducted and how the public can participate. The upcoming survey will also include questions about garbage collection, recycling collection and the possibility of organics collection. It is expected that it will be two surveys running in tandem; a statistically valid survey and a public opinion survey similar to the Cranbrook Citizen Survey – Budget 2025 conducted in the fall of 2024 to provide input to Council heading into budget deliberations.