the Lions signed a five-year lease extension<\/a> to keep the clubhouse and field at 10601 City Parkway until 2027. The club\u2019s \u201cpartnering agreement\u201d 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.<\/p>\nVienneau said the Lions have \u201ca very good working relationship with the City of Surrey. They\u2019ve been very forthright with us. There\u2019s some talks about this new arena, this 10,000-seat arena.\u2026 If that happens, we would be moving on to somewhere else, and they\u2019ve just said, \u2018Listen, we\u2019ll look after you. We\u2019ll figure that out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Doman wanted the renovations done on City Parkway, no matter what.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a pretty big commitment from an owner that knows we might not be here long,\u201d Vienneau said. \u201cBut it\u2019s important to the team. His comment, his exact words were, we need to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificant\u201d money was spent on the Lions\u2019 facility renovation project, according to Vienneau, though he wouldn\u2019t reveal an exact number.<\/p>\n
Vancouver-based architect Marguerite Laquinte Francis worked with Cloverdale-based Companion Construction to complete the project starting in December.<\/p>\n
The original plan was to have a temporary gym space in a big white tent outside. But players loved the \u201cCalifornia\u201d vibe for workouts, leaving more indoor space to renovate for the locker room and therapy area, so the tent stays.<\/p>\n
A new kitchen led the Lions to hire a nutritionist for the players. \u201cWe were really under-performing from a nutrition perspective,\u201d Vienneau said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say that our players never really complained about the facility, it wasn\u2019t like that,\u201d he added. \u201cYou 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\u2019t have that before, those kinds of things.\u2026 The players here today, their reactions, you could just see the excitement from the guys who\u2019ve been around for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BC Lions renovate facility on site where Surrey eyes new arena Published 10:00 am Wednesday, June 3, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-714428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}