The Community Learning Campus will undergo a $1.5-million addition on the north side of the Ralph Klein Centre later this summer.
The expansion will include additional locker room facilities on the first floor and a high-performance training centre for athletes adjacent to the current fitness centre.
Jordan Cleland, vice-president of advancement for the college, said the new Canadian Centre for Rural High Performance Sport will give high-performance athletes access to training facilities separate from the existing fitness centre.
That, in turn, will give other community members better access to the regular fitness centre.
“It will be separate but adjacent to the existing fitness facility,” he said. “The vision is that it will be a high-performance training location for high school athletes, college athletes, perhaps visiting national team members.”
More locker room space is badly needed for all who use the facilities at the CLC, Cleland said.
“Right now, the locker room capacity of Olds High School and Olds College Broncos … are significantly strained. This will allow for some much needed space expansion for that,” he said.
The new facility will be built onto the campus' existing Health and Wellness Centre, which already houses a full indoor running track, fitness centre and three-station gym.
The expansion was designed to be easily added to the three-year-old facility and creates two more change rooms for teams, team locker rooms and multi-purpose rooms that can be used for athletic activities or meeting space.
The planned addition was part of the original CLC design and a decision to delay its construction when the original campus was built is now lifted.
“A financial commitment to complete the space has been in place since the CLC facilities opened three years ago and is now being stewarded through this final CLC structural project referred to as ‘Finishing the Dream',” a media release from the college and the Chinook's Edge School Division states.
Cleland said it's hoped that construction can begin in a few weeks, with the completion date scheduled for sometime this autumn.
The Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos each pledged $20,000 for the expansion.
Richardson International, an agricultural company, pledged $80,000 toward the project, with the remainder coming from money left over from the original CLC project.
The cost of building the CLC was more than $50 million.
