Councillors on a City committee received a proposal Monday for a multi-million dollar upgrade and expansion plan for the Kinsmen Sports Centre.

A report was submitted to the Community Services Committee Monday, outlining the facility’s current state, and an overview of the proposed changes.

The plan would include adding to the lobby, expanding the fitness centre, adding universal change rooms and a new steam room and sauna, replace racquet courts, a new floor for the field house, expanding the warm up pool and adding parking.

It’s estimated redeveloping the facility would come at a cost of $106,350,000.

The plan presented to the Committee Monday outlined the business case for the project, saying attendance is expected to increase from 637,000 visits, to more than one million per year – with revenues expected to increase more than $1 million.

“If we want to have a top class facility for the city that you can use for meets that you can use for competition space that you can use for other training, the Kinsmen [Sports Centre] is where it needs to go,” Councillor Ben Henderson said.

However, there are parts of Edmonton that don’t yet have their own recreation facilities, such as the fast-growing west end. A location for a rec centre in Lewis Estates has been chosen, but no funding has been approved yet.

“For me, if I have to prioritize, I think a new facility in the west end where there isn’t any opportunity for families to have a healthy lifestyle is a higher priority,” Councillor Michael Oshry said.

The proposed upgrades would also include closing the pool for about a year and a half, and that concerns Herb Flewwelling, an Olympic diving coach, who said the closures would be a problem for athletes.

“They won’t get to the Olympics, kids will quit, the coaches won’t have employment and you’ll have to find new coaches, it’s very devastating,” Flewwelling said.

Flewwelling also supports the construction of a rec centre in Lewis Estates – he said aquatic teams could practice in such a facility while renovations are done at Kinsmen.

In the committee meeting, Councillors approved the idea of the plan – the budget would be up for debate in the 2019 budget, and if approved, construction would follow.

With files from Breanna Karstens-Smith