The Calgary Climbing Centre (CCC) held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for a new Olympic-calibre facility in the city's southwest.

The centre says the new 25,000-square-foot facility allows the centre to add 50 more employees to its current team of 150 working at its other gyms in the city.

The sport has been officially added to the list for the 2020 summer Olympics.

"The intention of it is to host a training ground for the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo," said CCC president Walson Tai.

"So a lot of that has been taken into consideration with the design of the building.

The Calgary Climbing Centre held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for a new Olympic-calibre facility in the southwest near Canada Olympic Park. (CBC)

The CCC has produced and helped train many provincial and national champions.

Tai says the groundbreaking has been a long time coming.

"We started the project in 2011. We're really excited to actually get some ground broken today," he said.

Tai says climbing is an increasingly popular sport in Calgary.

One in 10 Calgarians has been exposed to climbing, he said.

The new facility on West Valley Road, just west of COP, will feature an outdoor artificial wall.

The facility is slated to open in February 2018.