The closure of the Fortius Sport and Health centre will leave a unique gap in the city that will be hard to fill, Mayor Mike Hurley said.
Fortius runs an elite-level athlete development and health centre on Kensington Avenue, in the area of the Burnaby Lake Sports Complex, including the Bill Copeland Arena. But the non-profit announced over the weekend that it will be closing its doors for good.
A Fortius spokesperson said the organization was not providing interviews at this time, but Hurley said the closure was not unexpected.
“We’ve been hearing about that for a little while. It was out there that they were struggling to keep it together financially,” he said. “(It was) a fantastic idea and fantastic facility, but I guess there just wasn’t enough of that type of athlete to make a go of it. I think COVID added to it, but I think they were struggling prior to COVID as well.”
The announcement comes less than a year after a public hearing was held for the non-profit to open an esports training centre, to be run by Adamas Esports. That public hearing concluded with no speakers or letter-writers on the proposal.
“They’ve tried a lot of different things there,” Hurley said. “But obviously the business model just wasn’t able to sustain it.”
He added the Fortius centre “provided something really different” by offering to the general public the kind of athlete training typically available to elites in their fields.
“From that perspective, it’ll be very much a missed facility,” he said.
Asked whether the city would be interested in buying the land and incorporating it into the city’s suite of recreation facilities, Hurley said there hasn’t been an opportunity to look at that option.
In a statement published to its website, Fortius said it has not yet determined a date at which the facility will close.
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