$4 million allocated for renovations to the Leisure Centre may be redistributed to other aquatics projects in the city. Recreation and Sport Manager Kylee Haining says the city isn’t going to need another pool until the Eastlink Centre reaches 80 per cent capacity.
“Right now we’re at about 47 per cent capacity. What we’re doing is we have a regional Recreation Master Plan and it has the partnership of all the municipalities in the area and we’re waiting for the outcome of that to determine when and where the next pool will be built.”
In the meantime it has been proposed that that money be used to purchase a moving floor for the 50 ft pool at the Eastlink Centre. Haining says the movable floor would provide even more programming opportunities.
“It allows you to set the water depth at whatever you like. You can drop it down to, say, 3″ with the fountains and the lights and have a moms and tots program. You can set it to the ideal depth for whatever type of aerobics, so if it’s a seniors aerobics you can set it to whatever the comfort level of the participants is.”
Administration has also been instructed to obtain four different designs for what would be a covered gathering area and water feature to replace the existing but currently unused Bear Creek Pool. The designs should cost no more than $3 million to build. Haining says a design group that has been working on the Leisure Centre will be tackling this project as well.
“They are going to give us some concept ideas and then we’ll do an RFP for the actual design once we have a concept. We have them working already and I think they’ll be up within the next week or two to actually work with us and we’ve kind of given about an 8 week window of getting back with the concepts to committee of the whole.”
The recommendations have been passed on to City Council, and will be voted on at an upcoming meeting.