BC Lions renovate facility on site where Surrey eyes new arena
Published 10:00 am Wednesday, June 3, 2026
A fancy new BC Lions training facility in Surrey was revealed to football players and media Tuesday morning, June 2.
Operators of the CFL team gutted and renovated their aging facility in Whalley, where the Lions have practiced since the 1980s.
The entire space has been re-imagined with new L-shaped locker room and stalls, kitchen, lounge, hot tubs, cold baths, therapy/massage area and more.
Everything was basically ripped down to the studs and rebuilt in recent months, before the 2026 season started.
“We were long known as probably having the worst facility in the league,” said Lions president Duane Vienneau. “Amar (Doman), when he first bought the team, he didn’t even want to come here, he’d cringe.”
Last summer the team decided to move forward with the reconstruction work, despite uncertainty about their future on leased land next to Tom Binnie Park, which the City of Surrey targets as a potential site for a new 10,000-seat arena and entertainment district.
In 2022 the Lions signed a five-year lease extension to keep the clubhouse and field at 10601 City Parkway until 2027. The club’s “partnering agreement” with the City of Surrey called for a negotiated rent of $1.39 million, or $580,698 below the appraised rent, on land acquired by the city in 1991.
Vienneau said the Lions have “a very good working relationship with the City of Surrey. They’ve been very forthright with us. There’s some talks about this new arena, this 10,000-seat arena.… If that happens, we would be moving on to somewhere else, and they’ve just said, ‘Listen, we’ll look after you. We’ll figure that out.’”
Doman wanted the renovations done on City Parkway, no matter what.
“That’s a pretty big commitment from an owner that knows we might not be here long,” Vienneau said. “But it’s important to the team. His comment, his exact words were, we need to do better.”
“Significant” money was spent on the Lions’ facility renovation project, according to Vienneau, though he wouldn’t reveal an exact number.
Vancouver-based architect Marguerite Laquinte Francis worked with Cloverdale-based Companion Construction to complete the project starting in December.
The original plan was to have a temporary gym space in a big white tent outside. But players loved the “California” vibe for workouts, leaving more indoor space to renovate for the locker room and therapy area, so the tent stays.
A new kitchen led the Lions to hire a nutritionist for the players. “We were really under-performing from a nutrition perspective,” Vienneau said.
“I have to say that our players never really complained about the facility, it wasn’t like that,” he added. “You know, a team off the field that hangs together usually plays pretty well together on the field. Little things to them are important, just power in the stalls is an important thing. We didn’t have that before, those kinds of things.… The players here today, their reactions, you could just see the excitement from the guys who’ve been around for a long time.”