Four Seasons Pool Replacement A Possibility
Prince George, B.C.- Replacing the Four Seasons pool will be moving forward to budget discussions when Council examines the Capital plan on February 1st.
The pool, which is nearly half a century old, has a number of serious issues, with accessibility and the change rooms on the long list of deficiencies.
The consultant who assessed the pool provided City Staff with three options:
- Replacement of Four Seasons Leisure Pool (Est. Capital cost 33M plus $2 million for demolition)
- Replacement of Four Seasons Leisure Pool (Option 1) and Repair and Additions to Aquatic Centre (Est. Capital cost 63M)
- Leave Four Seasons Leisure Pool as-is and large expansion to Aquatic Centre (Est. Capital cost 37M)
Staff recommend the Four Seasons pool be replaced with a new facility in the downtown area. The estimated cost is $35 million ( includes the cost of demolition).
“It’s an enormous cost” said Councillor Brian Skakun, “This would be, in my opinion, a perfect referendum question” . The size of the price tag, and the fact the City is looking at borrowing the money to pay for it, means the electorate must have an opportunity to say yes or no to borrowing that amount of money. Typically, the City moves to an alternate approval process rather than a referendum because of the cost of conducting a referendum.
City Manager Kathleen Soltis says the proposed project will be part of the proposed capital plan and says if approved at that stage, then Council would have to decide if borrowing that sum of money should be put to the electorate in the form of a referendum or the alternate approval process.
Councillor Albert Koehler says he is against the alternate approval process, and notes the debt servicing cost annually is sitting at about $15.5 million.
Manager of Engineering, Dave Dyer says even if the project is approved, construction wouldn’t likely start until 2019 because of the need to have time for design development.
The matter will be discussed further at the February 1st budget meeting when the capital plan will be discussed.
Comments
It should definitely go to a referendum. Only we should have more options than what city staff put forward. We should have at least five options.
We could have the three options above, as well as:
Option 4: keep the existing pools as is and build smaller pools near Kelly Road and College Heights high schools.
Option 5: do nothing at this time until city debt is reduced to a more manageable level.
I think pools are great, but I don’t buy the argument that one replaces Four Seasons simply because change room sizes and real estate hypotheticals. I don’t believe there is any burning reason to replace Four Seasons and think it should be a heritage building in the city. I do agree we are beyond capacity for pool space in this city though.
I think another option would be to enable a private water park pool for recreation tied into a entertainment centre at Pine Center that could be used to revitalize the mall and be used as a tourist draw to the city. All ready our pools are a huge draw to the city from surrounding communities that use PG as a shopping base. Adding a recreation pool with large water slides and such would put us on the map for weekend travelers from a farther reach like Edmonton, Calgary, and the Lower Mainland giving them a true destination event when they arrive here.
It should definitely go to a referendum. Only we should have more options than what city staff put forward. We should have at least five options.
We could have the three options above, as well as:
Option 4: keep the existing pools as is and build smaller pools near Kelly Road and College Heights high schools.
Option 5: do nothing at this time until city debt is reduced to a more manageable level.
I think pools are great, but I don’t buy the argument that one replaces Four Seasons simply because change room sizes and real estate hypotheticals. I don’t believe there is any burning reason to replace Four Seasons and think it should be a heritage building in the city. I do agree we are beyond capacity for pool space in this city though.
I think another option would be to enable a private water park pool for recreation tied into a entertainment centre at Pine Center that could be used to revitalize the mall and be used as a tourist draw to the city. All ready our pools are a huge draw to the city from surrounding communities that use PG as a shopping base. Adding a recreation pool with large water slides and such would put us on the map for weekend travelers from a farther reach like Edmonton, Calgary, and the Lower Mainland giving them a true destination event when they arrive here.
IMO
Eagle: Option 4 is an excellent idea, and the City should have added that in. Failure to even talk about it is short sighted. Four Seasons has to be replaced. They keep trying to get folks to live in the old downtown, Four seasons not only has to be replaced, but expanded on as Lien has said.
If there’s a secret stash of PAC money laying around, this is the place to put it.
Oops sorry about the double post . iPad went all funny on me.
That is funny, when my iPhone messed up it gave me a message that I had already posted the same thing and didn’t repost, maybe it has something to do with the OS?
I agree that outright replacement is not the only solution.
There MAY be structural issues with the 4 seasons building (not sure, may be a rumour) but those and other issues could be repaired for far less capital cost than a new everything.
There is even space beside the existing building that could easily accommodate an expansion.
The thing with a new pool is that it would stand as a monument, a big shiny new thing that we can all be so proud of.
So tired of hearing the same old b.s.
“it’s cheaper to demolish it and put up a new one”
as regards this pool and other buildings.
I hope they spend plenty of time on this decision, and a referendum of the tax payers might not be a bad idea.
metalman.
Surprised they don’t stuff it down our throats like the winter games, which btw we never got to see the final numbers for.
Eagle One, do you exercise? The old pool needs replacing! It is jam packed with schools, classes, seniors exercising every day! It is tough to get a lane for yourself, and a lot of the time the lane is used by two or more people, so yeah it is needed! Although it will be a burden, they can cut into the social budget and maybe a few other ones until such time is is easier to deal with financially. Yes it should go to referendum. Seems we have money for all these other programs, time to deal with the healthy outlook status of the town too.
I think the City should build onto the Aquatic Centre. The reason, I think a lot of people forget that a big cost over the life of the pool is maintenance and operating costs. Every time you have a “separate” facility you need another team of City employees to run these operations. If you look to Cities like Whitehorse and Kelowna they have gone to a multi-use facility which keeps these costs low.
In Whitehorse, they have the Canada Games Centre which has 2 ice arenas, swimming pool, gym, indoor track, basketball court etc etc all under one roof.
Things like janitorial and front desk personnel are used efficiently. I hope our City starts realizing that we need to do this with the pool.
Though I like the idea of neighborhood pools, it is also good to get out of your neighborhood and meeting other like-minded individuals. It appears that the YMCA grounds, already owned by the City, are large enough for a pool, that is a logical fit for an already busy recreation area. An overpass to what will be an expensive track and field area across the road and you have lots of options for families.
Why should people living on the Hart or College Hgts, Vanway, have to drive into town to go swimming?
Before the old pool is demolished (how on earth can that cost 2 million dollars?) and replaced with a new modern one (good for another 5 decades or more) we must get access to provincial and federal cost sharing. The feds have set aside billions of dollars for replacing infrastructure that has aged beyond a repair option.
Personally I am unaware of P.G. having received any federal infrastructure funds for any minor or major project project!
2 million sounds about right. For example if your house is totaled for what ever reason demolishing and removal can cost 30 grand or more, and that is just for a house, then exponentially for the pool. Just ask your home insurance agent.
Demolishing the pool would be one job on one site.
Demolishing sixty-five houses would be sixty-five jobs on sixty-five different sites! There is a thing called economy of scale, which means the comparison of cost using the same amount is not very reasonable.
So you are then saying the pool demolition would cost the as a house?
Actually demolishing 65 houses works out about the same cost as one pool. Your point is?
What is my point? Obviously you did not grasp that it should cost way less to demolish one large building in one location than sixty-five smaller buildings in sixty-five different location! You are the one who compared apples to oranges! Whatever!
A huge part of the cost of demolition is the charges for putting the debris in the landfill. Since the Regional District uses this pool and other facilities in Prince George they should not charge us landfill costs on this project.
I hope the contractor is bright enough to have a long hard look at Procore.com . They are number one in the building software arena . It insures that no efficiency tool is over looked and puts every facet of a project on the same page .
It is of my opinion that a new pool should be built in the downtown core area. Its current location is good, but could it some how be tied to the civic center, so that it becomes one huge recreational mall.
So not a peep for PAC, what they can not rally up enough support, or prove viability.
So what is going to happen with the old cop shop?
Lots of questions and few answers. I am in favour of option one, however I would certainly like to see how much money the City will put into this project from internal revenue, and other Government infrastructure funds and how much they are going to borrow. I am assuming that they would keep the old pool running until the new one was complete. We should also be looking a property in the downtown area that we already own, to ensure that we do not buy any **new property** for this project.
Wasn’t there another break to another City water Main not to long ago? That’s the infrastructure that really needs to be replaced. It might not be much fun living without a pool but it can be done. Living without water, sewer and decent roads might be a bit more challenging.
I guess there’s no photo ops for the Mayor in a sewer line though.
What about a lagoon in Cottonwood Park, fed by the river for the summer months? Good swimming down there when I was a kid.
We had one like that in Tumbler Ridge when I was a kid before the townsite was built. Had a back hoe dig a pool out from a stream with water flowing through it. It worked great, but was a little cold for the most part.
I always figured we should have something like that at Fish Trap Island between Foothils Bridge and Wilson Park.
The natural back channel that use to be a flow through channel before Foothills was built. Put a gate in at the up river portion of it and dig the channel a few feet deeper and add beach sand along its banks. A perfect place to swim in the river here in town where it is safe from currents, and safe for kids, and no one else drowns in the river needlessly.
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