Suncor Community Leisure Centre at MacDonald Island Park Renovation and Expansion

Fort McMurray, Alb.
Construction Cost: $131 million (Canadian)
Area / Square Feet: 422,081
Occupancy Date: September 2010

The existing 30-year-old facility consisted of a single-sheet NHL-size rink, a leisure ice surface, 12 sheets of curling ice, a fitness area, racquet courts, a golf pro shop, and banquet and lounge spaces. The leisure center now includes an additional hockey rink, new spectator and change facilities, a new ice plant serving all ice surfaces, twin multipurpose surfaces, an indoor field house, a suspended running track, renovation of the banquet area, an enhanced fitness center, a public library and a major aquatics component with 50- and 25-meter pools, a water park and leisure pools.

A new single public entry point opens to a new operations control point within a large and bright central concourse. The concourse forms the pedestrian spine connecting new and previously existing components. Continuous glazing is provided across the sweeping front facade, throughout the public library, the entry and the water park. The sport and leisure areas are large both in footprint and in height, and the central concourse connecting these spaces is appropriately sized to create a feeling of openness.

A dynamic new curved facade runs the full expanse of the building, while horizontal bands of colored masonry glass, aluminum and prefinished metal course their way around the perimeter of the complex, unifying the masses of the field house, the arena and the water park.