A new playground and additional seating will be added, along with improved trails and beach access. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

Loudon Park will soon have a new look.

After decades of deliberation and more recent feedback from the community, the City of Nanaimo has unveiled updated plans for the Loudon Park Improvement project. The City held an open house on Thursday, July 23 at the park along Long Lake to showcase the plans for interested community members.

The projected $11.4 million project will see a new boathouse that includes a community gathering space, public washrooms, training space and equipment and boat storage. As well, a new playground and additional seating will be added, along with improved trails and beach access.

Plans for the updated Loudon Park facilities. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

Isaac Morgan is the president of the Long Lake Flat Water Training Centre Society, a society created as a joint venture between Nanaimo Rowing Club and Nanaimo Canoe & Kayak Club to promote the construction of the building.

“The overall park design looks great, and the design for the amenity building is excellent,” Morgan said The architects have really listened to the sports groups, and I think they've listened to the community. So we're very pleased with the design.”

Morgan said the new building will greatly benefit the clubs, but also the entire community.

“It will be a great community amenity. It's going to be focused here on Long Lake and within walking distance and biking distance for all the people around this area,” he said. “[It] will be a great support for youth and adults and seniors to access paddling, to access rowing and community programming in the building.”

He said he is very pleased to be finally getting to this step in the project.

“We're very fortunate to be at this stage with a design emerging, a really solid design, and getting to the point where that becomes a reality to be constructed next year,” Morgan said.

Ed and Louise Coutu grew up in Nanaimo and always enjoyed Long Lake. They passed along their love for the park to their kids.

Growing up in the Wellington area, Louise said she would go to Long Lake whenever she could.

“I remember taking the sun swim classes here, learning how to swim here-that was one memory. My husband and I dated,” Louise said. “We would come here [with] ice cream cones.”

Ed said he remembers swimming out to the tiny island in the middle of Long Lake they refer to as Ginger Island.

“I spent probably every day from probably the middle of April till sometime in September down here,” Ed said.

Growing up in a house only a block away from the park, he also remembers being able to skate on Long Lake.

“We came to the park in the winter. It used to freeze over more often than it does now, so you could go skating,” Ed said. “We used to walk out on the ice, really dangerous now that I think of it. We were out there when we shouldn't have been, but those are my memories.”

The current aging building used by the Nanaimo Rowing Club and the Nanaimo Canoe & Kayak Club. (Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7FM)

Today the lake is popular with families for swimming. The park is also home to the Nanaimo Rowing Club and Nanaimo Canoe & Kayak Club. Louise said her father, Emile Villette, was one of the men who originally made the current aging building used by the clubs.

“So when he came here in 1945 he got involved with the small community and they made it a community association, and they built the Wellington Community Hall,” Louise said. “Then through the years they got more involved with other grants, and they had money in 1967 for that centennial, and so they decided in their community group to build this shelter.”

Louise said as a teenager at the time, she remembers that the best part of the building was the public washrooms connected to it.

“We were happy we had washrooms. Before that, you did not, so you had to go home,” she said.

Over the years, Louise said she has seen many changes to the park including when the rowing club first started using Long Lake. She has always been supportive of the club building being upgraded, but in 2025 when a previous version of plans for the Loudon Park improvements came out, she had concerns.

“I sort of watched along what was happening until I felt that the trees were part of my history, and I did not want this big facility to take up all of the park,” she said. “I felt there had to be a better way to do do it.”

In 2025 Louise joined a group of community members and nearby residents who were concerned with then $10.8 million plans for a new boathouse that would take up a significant portion of the park and remove 29 mature trees. Following public outcry, Nanaimo City Council voted to reconsider plans to upgrade the park.

The community group had meetings with municipal staff about what they wanted to see improvements look like at a park that meant so much to them. She said through those meetings, the plans were completely redrawn and care was given to improve the whole park.

The City of Nanaimo purchased two properties adjacent to Loudon Park in the fall of 2025, adding 0.49 acres to the park to help make space for the upgrades. Ed said they are both very happy to see these new planned improvements.

“I think it's awesome,” he said. “At first, there was a bit of a struggle but now everybody's working together. I just think it's awesome.”

According to the City of Nanaimo, the project is anticipated to be completed in 2028.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.

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