Gates Park Sports Hub opens in Port Coquitlam

Port Coquitlam's rebuilt Gates Park Sports Hub is open. The city held the official opening on September 21, 2026, marking the biggest upgrade in years to one of the city's busiest sports grounds.

Gates Park has long served as a hub for community, recreation and sports in Port Coquitlam, and the city says the upgrades further that role, creating an intergenerational space that supports its commitment to becoming a leader in sports, recreation, parks and trails in British Columbia.

What is open now, and what is coming

The project replaces an underused grass field with a multi-purpose synthetic turf field built for soccer, field lacrosse and other field sports, plus a dedicated warm-up pitch. Synthetic turf is the workhorse upgrade here: where grass fields chew up and close in the wet Lower Mainland winter, turf stays playable almost year-round, which is how the city squeezes significantly more field time out of the same footprint.

The upgraded site also has field lighting for evening play, a scoreboard and covered team benches. Four new pickleball courts are part of the site too, marked with their own ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 29, a nod to the sport's explosive growth in the Tri-Cities.

One major piece is still being built: a 500-seat spectator grandstand, which the city expects to complete in 2027.

Beyond the playing surfaces, the project reworked the park itself: an improved entrance, a new decorative plaza, cleared sightlines across the site, a refreshed pathway network, an upgraded access road from Reeve Street and additional parking.

How it is funded

The project is funded with approximately $6.7 million in provincial money, with the rest covered by the city from accumulated surplus funds, which the city says means no impact to taxpayers.

The plan changed shape along the way. After rising construction costs prompted a reassessment, the city moved ahead independently with a revised plan to complete the upgrades. A previously planned partnership with BC Soccer will not continue, but the city frames the revised approach as more community-focused: facilities chosen for the needs of Port Coquitlam residents and the city's growing local sports associations, rather than a provincial partner's priorities.

Built with local clubs

The Sports Hub was developed in collaboration with local sports organizations, including Port Coquitlam FC (PoCo Soccer) and the PoCo Sport Alliance. The city expects the new facility to significantly increase field time and amenities for children, youth, adults and seniors, while creating capacity to host local and regional tournaments and events.

That tournament piece matters beyond sport. Regional tournaments fill hotel rooms and restaurants, and the city has been explicit that sports infrastructure is partly an economic play.

A busy season for PoCo sports

The Gates Park opening lands in the middle of a construction surge. About two weeks after the ceremony, the city broke ground on a $12.45-million covered Multi-Sport Facility on Shaughnessy Street, a mass-timber venue for lacrosse, ball hockey, basketball and pickleball due to open in late 2027. Between the two projects, Port Coquitlam is making a clear bet that sport is central to the city's identity for the next decade.

More than a sports field

The city is careful to frame the hub as a community space, not just an athlete's amenity. Its project materials note the upgrades are also meant to improve the experience for people who visit Gates Park to walk, meet friends and neighbours and enjoy the park, which is why the pathway network, sightlines, plaza and entrance got as much attention as the turf.

Gates Park sits along the Coquitlam River corridor, and the refreshed trails tie the sports grounds into the wider riverside path system that Port Coquitlam residents use daily for walking, running and cycling.

What to watch next

Two dates now matter for Gates Park. First, the 500-seat spectator grandstand: once it lands in 2027, the venue becomes a proper host for championship games and regional finals, not just league play. Second, the downstream effect on scheduling: as the Multi-Sport Facility on Shaughnessy Street comes online in late 2027, the city will be able to shuffle indoor and outdoor bookings between the two venues, easing the crunch that has frustrated local clubs for years.

For now, bookings for the new turf field and pickleball courts run through the city's usual recreation channels, and the fields are already in the fall rotation for local soccer and lacrosse clubs.

Why the province chipped in

The roughly $6.7 million in provincial funding fits a pattern of Victoria backing community sport infrastructure that can host regional events, not just local league play. For Port Coquitlam, outside money plus the city's surplus funds meant the project moved without touching the tax rate, a point the city has emphasized to residents watching several big projects at once.

The bigger picture

Taken together, Gates Park and the coming Multi-Sport Facility give Port Coquitlam a two-pillar sports system: outdoor field sports anchored downtown-side at Gates Park, and covered dry-floor sports on the northside. For a city of its size, it is an unusually deliberate build-out, and local clubs say it cannot come fast enough.