By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

AQUATIC FACILITY

Design and site options for new Red Deer pool to be studied over next year

Apr 15, 2019 | 8:03 PM

Red Deer city council has approved the scope for an aquatic centre project.

It will be given to a consultant hired to conduct a study on which options best suit The City going forward in terms of constructing a facility that offers FINA-level standards.

Whatever is constructed will be suitable for provincial swimming competitions, national artistic swimming and water polo meets, and regional diving competitions. It would also include an outdoor pool regardless of which site is chosen. There are a number of sites on the table, though the only one known at this time is the downtown recreation centre.

“I’m actually very, very pleased because figuring out the scope of what Red Deer should do versus what other cities need is extremely difficult. There are so many different solutions to the same problem,” says Roy van der Sluis, member of the Central Alberta Aquatic Centre group.

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“How to get there is not an easy task because there are so many users that need this in so many different ways. I’m also a taxpayer and I don’t want a $110 million facility. And as president of the Masters Swim Club, I have to pay a fee, so if we build something twice as expensive as is needed, that means I have an expectation my fees could go up.”

Last fall, city council moved design costs for an aquatic facility up to 2019 and 2020 from 2023. Construction remains slotted in for 2025.

Following the study’s completion, administration expects to have a recommendation ready for council by June 2020. Detailed design would then take approximately one year, leaving construction to start as early as 2022, if council decides that is what’s appropriate.

“Anytime we hire a consultant, we give them all of the background information, so all the years of work that have gone into developing the first multi-use aquatic centre plan, as well as all the information (and public feedback) we’ve gathered,” says Shelley Gagnon, Manager, Recreation, Parks and Culture. “We’ll be looking for someone with the expertise that has built these kinds of facilities in the past.”

An aquatic facility was originally inserted into The City’s 10-year capital plan at the end of 2014. At the time, design was slated for 2019, with construction starting in 2021-2023.

The initial site analysis, conceptual model, and business plan were put together in 2011.