Relief for BC Lions after Surrey arena plans pivot to former Safeway site<\/p>\n
Published 1:30 pm Sunday, July 5, 2026<\/p>\n
BC Lions are happy that Surrey is now looking to the corner of 104 Avenue and King George Boulevard to build a new 10,000-seat arena and cultural event <\/a>centre<\/a>, not two blocks north in Whalley.<\/p>\n Months ago the CFL team had been put on notice that the city\u2019s preferred arena site was on City Parkway where their football training facility is located on city-owned land, along with neighbouring Tom Binnie Park.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s no longer the case, following the city\u2019s arena announcement June 30.<\/p>\n Lions president Duane Vienneau says the City of Surrey was never locked into the Tom Binnie site for a proposed new arena.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew there were a couple of potential sites,\u201d Vienneau told the Now-Leader on June 30. \u201cThey had told me, had indicated to me awhile ago, that it wasn\u2019t necessarily Tom Binnie, but it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n The city\u2019s focus on the former Safeway store site on 104 Avenue means the Lions can stay longer-term at the clubhouse they\u2019ve occupied since the 1980s and recently renovated<\/a> with a new locker room, kitchen, lounge, hot tubs, cold baths, therapy\/massage area and more.<\/p>\n \u201cWe like being in Surrey, and our owner (Amar Doman) wouldn\u2019t have have invested that much money (in the renovation) if he didn\u2019t,\u201d Vienneau said. \u201cWe like it there. We\u2019ve been there for a long time. We\u2019ve renovated our facility. This might give us opportunities to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n For the Lions, a focus is now on Tom Binnie Park\u2019s artificial turf, which they haven\u2019t been able to use in rainy fall months when their grass field is sometimes too wet to practice on. Instead, in recent years they have moved practices to Hjorth Road in Guildford during those wet days.<\/p>\n \u201cThe City didn\u2019t want to invest in a new turf at Tom Binnie in case it was the site of the new arena,\u201d according to Vienneau. \u201cSo now that the (arena) site is not there, I expect the turf to be replaced at the earliest possible time because they understand it\u2019s not very good for us to not have that turf there.\u201d<\/p>\n The existing turf at Tom Binnie is not up to CFL safety standards, he noted. \u201cThe CFL Players Association will not allow us to practice on that field. It has to have a certain amount of give, and that field it is hard as a rock. You might as well be practicing on concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n