Put 10,000-seat Surrey arena to referendum, Annis says – Peace Arch News

Published 11:15 am Wednesday, October 22, 2025
By Tom Zytaruk
Surrey city councillor and mayoral candidate Linda Annis is calling for a referendum on a 10,000-seat arena the city intends to anchor an Entertainment District downtown.
“This arena proposal needs to be transparent, with taxpayers having the final say. In fact, put it on the ballot during the 2026 municipal election next October,” Annis says.
“A dynamic entertainment district should be part of our city centre, but a costly, taxpayer-funded arena is no substitute for the parks, pools, rinks and playing fields we desperately need in our local neighbourhoods. Brenda Locke’s arena has no business plan, no costing, and no guarantee that taxpayers will not be on the hook for this pricey project when costs go up,” Annis said, adding that “local neighbourhoods and families” should be city hall’s priority.
“I’ve said the arena will cost at least $600 million, and probably more,” said Annis. “No one has shown me numbers that say anything different, and every publicly funded project we see these days is way over budget, with taxpayers on the hook.”
Surrey council on October 20 amended the City Centre Plan to accommodate the creation of an Entertainment District on but Coun. Mike Bose warned the arena “cannot be a drain on the taxpayers.”
“We have yet to see the business plan where the total cost of the arena to taxpayers – I expect that these numbers exist, as they should – we have a budget of several million dollars for the Newton Community Centre and as this project has been slowed down those costs increase the same way the cost increased for the Cloverdale ice complex when it was stopped by the former mayor and then restarted.”
Bose fears costs associated to the arena could double. “If something goes wrong, if there is no tenant or there is and that tenant walks away, it is the taxpayer left on the hook. The taxpayers of the city need to see the business case and be transparent about it. The taxpayers should have a say in how they would like to spend those hundreds of millions of dollars. So I definitely support an entertainment district; I cannot support an arena at any cost particularly when we have neighbourhood needs for more parks, pools, playing fields and rinks.”
A corporate report that came before council on October 20 from Surrey’s general manager of planning and development Ron Gill and Scott Neuman, general manager of engineering, asked the politicians to approve an update to the existing plan that will implement required land use and policy changes to align it with the Provincial Transit-Oriented Areas framework. The City Centre Arena will anchor the district, with an economic feasibility study commissioned by city staff confirming “potential” for a 10,000-seat arena that’s capable of hosting “a primary sports tenant, concerts, and various entertainment and community events.”
“Based on this, a concept plan was developed integrating the City Centre Arena within a mixed-use development located on the City-owned lands adjacent to the Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre at Tom Binnie Park,” their report reads.
Besides the arena, there would also be roughly 100,000 square feet of commercial space – retail, entertainment, and office – a “175-key” hotel with 60,000 square feet of ballroom, meeting and conference facilities, and an enclosed promenade that would connect the arena with the commercial development.
Bose’s comments were not well received by other councillors. “The entertainment core is going to be the next evolution of our city – our city’s growing up,” Coun. Harry Bains said. “We’re turning downtown Surrey into a regional draw. That’s going to bring money into our city, that’s going to bring jobs into our city, that’s going to spur development in our downtown core, this is exactly what we need to see.”
“It’s going to be amazing once it’s done.”
Coun. Doug Elford echoed Bains. “We’re not approving any assets at this time,” he noted. “We need to spruce up our downtown and I’m looking forward to the changes that are coming.”
Gill noted the business at hand Monday was to incorporate the concept of the Entertainment District into the City Centre Plan “with more detailed planning and policy work to come forward after this.”
Coun. Gordon Hepner said he’s looking forward to exploring this. “Folks, we’re building a downtown. Like, there’s going to be an entertainment district. There’s going to have retail, and restaurants, and bars, and high-rises, and of course, hopefully, the actual arena which the university district will use, other sporting groups will use which will be an unbelievable addition to a downtown and because of that we have to visualize a downtown.”
Coun. Mandeep Nagra remarked that “I think one thing that we’re forgetting is a casino – we should have a casino in our entertainment district, something to look at.”
Coun. Rob Stutt said Surrey “definitely” needs an entertainment centre, “it’s something we hear about time and time again. As for recreation and playing fields, we’ve been doing that.” “We should be moving forward with pride. This is the future for Surrey.”
Coun. Pardeep Kooner “took issue” with the idea Surrey is “not moving forward.”
“I think people can see we are doing everything we can. There’s investments in roads, in parks that we’ve been approving so far and there’s more to come. So I think people can see that there is a lot happening and I think we do need to focus on all areas of the city and to make sure people have what they need so they don’t have to leave the city, they don’t have to go downtown Vancouver and we need to have the resources and the amenities here within our own city,” Kooner said.
Mayor Brenda Locke said Surrey now has 723,000 residents. “That’s a lot of people, and we have to create a city. We are building a city – we are building the next modern city in Canada so having the vision and doing this kind of work is exactly what we need to do and I can tell you you won’t be successful by voting against every capital project that comes forward and that’s what’s happened in the past, councillor Bose.”

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