SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife's Elks Lodge is offering the city $560,000 toward construction of the city's $17-million sports fieldhouse but there's a catch: The service club wants exclusive use of the second floor of a wing of the building to house air cadets.

The Elks Lodge made the proposal to city council on Monday.

Elks Lodge representative Dave Hurley said $460,000 will go toward covering the cost of building the fieldhouse wing, and $100,000 will be used to fund the cost of equipment for the first floor playground.

"We feel it's a win-win situation for the youth, the cadets and the city of Yellowknife," said Hurley.

He said the Yellowknife Air Cadets have not had a permanent home for many years and their current homestead, the Elks Club, is no longer suitable. The proposed location at the fieldhouse for the air cadets would be for their exclusive use for a term of 20 years.

"We need to build classrooms and storage space," said Hurley. "We the Elks may use it but it's not for a revenue-generating space."

The playground equipment would be a one-time purchase, and be left to the city to operate and maintain, but Hurley asked that the playground area be named after the Elks in some way.

Hurley also requested they be named as a fieldhouse sponsor, and receive three hours a week from September to June on one of the soccer fields for cadet use, plus two additional evenings a year for cadet exercises.

City councillor David Wind asked about earlier plans for the air cadets to take up space at the Yellowknife Curling Club and wondered why they decided on the fieldhouse instead. Hurley pointed out the limitations of the curling club.

"We found we had to build a facility within a facility and it became way too expensive," Hurley said. "The fieldhouse was attractive because it's a new facility and it's very central."

Wind also raised concerns about the amount of possible revenue lost from providing exclusive use of the second floor.

Grant White, director of community services, estimated it would total $45,000 in lost revenue annually, amounting to $900,000 over a 20-year period. City administrator Max Hall said the life of the building will likely be 50 years, and after the cadets' 20 years of use it would be possible to have a tenant for the remaining life of the building, which would compensate for any lost revenues.

Coun. Bob Brooks said he was very pleased with the proposal, adding he had no issues with moving ahead with it.

"This is exactly the type of proposal we expected to get before building," said Brooks.