The pools have been filled with water, the boxes are being unpacked, furniture and equipment are being put together, and staff are being trained – all in preparation for the opening of təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre.
The $114.6-million facility has been built to replace the former Canada Games Pool and Centennial Community Centre. The 10,644 square metre (114,571 square feet) facility includes: an eight-lane. 50-metre pool; a leisure pool with a lazy river, hot pools, and tot zone; a fitness centre; two gymnasiums; multi-purpose rooms; and community gathering spaces – indoors and outside.
Tobi May, the city’s senior manager of civic building and properties, said the city broke ground on the project in April 2021.
“So, it has been a full three years of active construction on the site, which was preceded by a significant amount of time spent on the design and detailing and tendering of the construction, which was preceded by many years of thoughtful engagement with the community to identify what were the priorities for this project,” she told council at an April 8 workshop. “And I think you'll see, hopefully, that we've delivered on that.”
May said the project is still tracking to the same schedule that had been presented to council in the previous project update in September 2023. At the April 8 workshop, May said the city with working very hard with Heatherbrae Contractors to take possession of the facility on April 11.
In less than three weeks, the first spaces in the long-awaited facility will open to the community. Here are some key dates to note:
- Monday, April 29 – 9 a.m.: Community centre opening event
- Wednesday, May 8 – 12 to 2 p.m.: Public art unveiling
- Tuesday, May 14 – 4 p.m.: Aquatic centre opening – First Swim
- Saturday, June 1 – 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Grand opening celebration
- June: facility rental service begins
- July: completion of Phase 2 (public realm and parking at the side of the site closest to the curling club)
“We are looking forward to a community centre opening date on April 29.” May said. “There's lots of staff training, of course, that happens between the 11th and the 29th, and has been happening already.”
May said the April 29 and May 14 dates are “soft openings” that will give staff time to operate the facility and work out some of the kinks. Those dates will be followed by the grand opening on June 1, the launch of rentals to certain spaces in June, and the completion of Phase 2 towards the end of July.
Community centre opening
Renee Chadwick, the city’s manager of special projects and community partnerships, said the plan for April 29 opening of the community centre includes a blessing of the facility.
“That's first day of programs, registered programs and drop-ins, so there's going to be this natural flow of people coming through,” she said. “There will be refreshments and activations.”
Corrinne Garrett, the city’s senior manager of recreation services and facilities, said the fitness centre, the gymnasiums, and all of the multipurpose rooms will be opening when the community centre opens on April 29. The new child-care centre is pushing to open on May 1.
Starting April 29, the facility will be offering programs like Discovery Playtime, youth and seniors’ programs, and some of the city’s arts, science and dance programs.
“Really, anything that was displaced from Centennial Community Centre will have its home in təməsew̓txʷ on the 29th of April,” she told the Record. “We were very intentional in the ways that we've started up our programs. We wanted to make sure that all of our displaced programs from Centennial were accommodated first.”
But along with the return of programs that had been offered at Centennial Community Centre, the city is adding some new programs to the offerings at TACC.
“Now, we have two gymnasiums, so we added some drop-in sports,” Garrett said. “So, we've got the cycle studio opening, all of our drop-in group fitness classes. We wanted to get all those up and running.”
According to Garrett, the city will start building on the spring programming and bringing new programs and services onboard when registration open for summer programs.
Asked what the city expects in terms of attendance at the facility, Garrett said the city looked at numbers going through the doors at facilities in some neighbouring communities.
“They were getting 1,100 or 1,200 people a day through the doors, and on busier days more,” she said. “I expect our facility's going to be pretty much full – we will be probably at about 75 per cent capacity, in terms of programs going on in our spaces and the turnover in our spaces right from the get-go.”
Chadwick expects community members will be flocking to the facility to check it out.
“I think with the two facilities being closed, there's a lot of excitement and anticipation of wanting to have this back in the neighbourhood,” she said. “And because it's new, and they've seen it for the last two-and-a-half years, that all of a sudden it's like it's there and people want to be part of that home.”
Pool opening
While the community centre will open on April 29, community members will have to wait until May 14to take the plunge in the new pools.
Garrett explained that the city has been working with the province’s Health Protection Branch to come in and do the inspections required before the pool opens. Because the city’s goal was to get as much of the facility opened as early as possible, she said the decision was made to open the community centre first – as that side of the building has been nearly complete since the end of 2023 (but could not open as it was an active construction site)
“As soon as we got occupancy, we knew that we could get staff in and get them trained quicker on the community recreation site than we could in the pool site,” she said. “Training lifeguard staff how to safely guard and do all the emergency procedures that they need to in that aquatic environment obviously takes a little bit more time as well, than activating a multipurpose space.”
Although the pool is set to open in May, it will be closed for a couple of days at the beginning of June.
May said the “one notable supply chain issue” encountered by the city in the past few months related to the delivery of the two custom bulkheads for the pool. The bulkheads allow for changing the length of the pool.
“They're really critical to using the pool for what it's designed for. … We have a firm commitment now for delivery of that in the first week of June,” she said. “So, unfortunately, there will be a temporary closure of only the competition pool for a couple of days shortly after the grand opening, but we expect to have that all finished and tied up. We didn't want to delay the grand opening for something that is isolated.”
Until the bulkheads arrive and are installed, the 50-metre competition pools will be divided by ropes, said a report to council.
Beginning of a journey
Gibson said there’s tremendous excitement and anticipation related to the opening of təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre.
“We're beginning a journey into the opening and discovery of the facility and its programs,” he said. “And that journey is going to go on for many, many months – starting with this phased opening of the building, the gradual build-up of our programs and services.”
In the same way that community members figuring out how the new building works, he said staff will also be learning how the building operates.
“We're going to kind of have this gradual and continuous expansion and improvement of the work that we do over the next several months, and working with the community to build that together,” he said. “So just because the construction has stopped doesn't mean the work has stopped either. It really is just beginning. We've got the team ready to go and are excited for that.”
