

ON JUNE 13 last year, City of Victoria councillors received a report stating that building a new Crystal Pool might cost as much as $216 million. Many councillors were shocked by the number, far higher than the $68 million quoted to the previous Council back in 2017, but as City staff explained, construction costs had skyrocketed due to post-COVID inflation. After three hours of debate, the councillors voted unanimously to seek voter approval via a referendum to borrow $169 million for a new pool, and to cover the remainder with $47 million from the City’s financial reserves. Now that vote is finally happening, this Saturday, February 8.
But buried in the all the information presented that day were references to another report—one that wasn’t shown to councillors—detailing the condition of the existing pool, and estimating the costs of repairing or replacing all of its components. The total of that work comes to $17.4 million, suggesting it might be far less expensive to fix the old pool than to replace it.
The City has never undertaken a comprehensive renovation that could add years to the pool’s timespan
The report, produced by Evoke Buildings Engineering in March of 2024, comes in two parts: a Crystal Pool Condition Assessment Report (uploaded HERE), and a Crystal Pool Capital Plan (uploaded HERE). The Condition Assessment explains the terms of the Capital Plan, which lists every component of the existing pool, its current condition, recommended actions for dealing with it, the risk its failure poses to the facility, and the probable cost of repairing it, in 2024 dollars.
(The Capital Plan is laid out horizontally in small type, so we’ve created an easier-to-read summary, uploaded HERE, listing most of the items, especially the critical ones—identified in red—that are near failure, and would require closing the pool for several months and/or lots of money to fix.)
If you add up the cost of all the items on pages 1-6 of the Capital Plan, including the ones that aren’t urgent, they total $17,394,000. Pages 7-12 list those items again, but organizes them by the years in which the City should tackle them, to keep the pool operating; those items total $11,806,000.
Problems with the pool’s domed skylights were identified in a 2011 report (left), and replacements were proposed in 2013. Today replacements will cost $3 million, but last for 20 years
The Condition Assessment and Capital Plan were prepared by Chris Raudoy, a building-science consultant with 20 years’ experience, and the Vancouver Island lead for Evoke. The Capital Plan identifies various components of the pool as currently being in “good”, “fair”, and “poor” condition, with cost estimates associated with each of them. So I asked Raudoy, was that his estimate of the cost to put each element back into “good” condition?
“Generally speaking, yes, the costs would be [to] repair or replace components to get them back into serviceable (good) condition,” he told me, in an email. “The assessment covers all major components. It does list areas where replacement will be hard, due to older equipment (top of my head the filtration system filters come to mind). Updates were included for these items, but there are knock-on issues down the line of the systems that are also being considered.” Redesign and building integration would be required for some of the pool’s interrelated electrical and mechanical systems—“trying to get new equipment into old spaces, just like a car, mechanically it can be harder to retrofit a piece in,” Raudoy said—but his cost estimates included the anticipated design fees.
As the City has noted, and the Capital Plan confirms, many components of the old pool are at the end of their useful life. The City has spent $2 million since 2017 on several repairs and upgrades, such as replacing the pool’s boilers, but has never conducted a comprehensive renovation to tackle the pool’s biggest problems. One is the pool’s huge domed skylights: deterioration of the skylights has been identified since at least 2011, and in 2013, the engineering firm Stantec created a plan for replacing them, at a cost up to $1.87 million. Now Raudoy estimates that would cost $3 million, and the pool would need to be closed for six months or more to do the work.
“The skylights are actively leaking, and multiple components have failed,” Raudoy said in an email. “They are not longer serviceable in their current condition. The time to replace includes the engineering, site work, procuring the skylights (including shop drawing), removing the existing skylights and installing the new systems. In addition, the interior and exterior (roofing) work is included the scope.” Those new skylights, he told me, would have “a service life of 20 years plus.”
The Feasibility Study presented to councillors used the repair costs in Evoke’s Capital Plan, but identified them as the “Total Value” of the old pool’s components. “Repair Cost” might’ve alerted readers that repairs were possible, and relatively inexpensive
The principal document presented to Victoria’s councillors last June, a new-pool Feasibility Study prepared by the architecture firm HCMA, did mention Evoke’s Condition Assessment, but only used it to determine how much the City would have to spend to keep the old pool operating while a new one was being built. According to the Study, the failure of any element of the pool needing repairs over $1 million and taking more than a few months was deemed “catastrophic,” meaning that it would require permanent closure of the facility. But instead of allocating $10 million or more for the repairs identified by Evoke—after all, why spend $3 million on new skylights when you’re going to tear the pool down?—staff and consultants created a “risk reserve” of a couple of million, mainly to deal with smaller electrical and mechanical issues, and possible leaks from the pool tank, that might occur while the old pool remains open.
In light of such “catastrophic” risks, at the June meeting, City staff recommended demolishing the old pool ASAP, and building a new one on its footprint (the “Central Park North” option). That would have the shortest construction timeline, staff said, because the site was already excavated for a pool tank, and would save money too, by eliminating the old pool’s ongoing operational costs and need for a “risk reserve.” But councillors wanted an oppportunity to keep the old pool open while a new one is being built alongside it (the “Central Park South” option), even though staff warned that the blasting and excavation might permanently damage the old pool anyway. (This happened recently in New Westminster.)
Consequently, there’s a second, non-binding question this Saturday, asking if you want a new pool North, or South. Repairing the old pool isn’t on the ballot, and councillors won’t consider it unless a majority of voters say No to the first question, asking to borrow $169 million for a new pool.
The total cost of fixing the old pool likely would not be limited to the $17.4 million identified in Evoke’s Capital Plan. “These opinions of probable costs are ‘orders of magnitude’ and are for initial budgeting purposes only,” Raudoy wrote in Evoke’s Condition Assessment. “More accurate cost estimates for the rehabilitation plan can only be obtained for work of this nature once the design, specifications and detailed tender documents are completed.”
As longtime City-watchers know, back in 2015 Stantec identified some $13 million in basic repairs and renovations to the old pool. Two years later, when HCMA presented its first Feasibility Study to the City, the estimate for that work had ballooned to $39.8 million, accounting for soft costs, escalation, and contingencies. HCMA said a brand-new, expanded aquatic facility would cost $68 million and last for 50 years, which is mainly why Victoria’s previous Council chose to replace the pool—a decision the current Council has obediently followed, without considering repair at all.
Of course, undertaking the $17.4 million of repairs listed in Evoke’s Capital Plan would only return the old pool to reliable functionality, maybe for 20 years, before repairs are needed again. That wouldn’t provide greater accessibility, or features like a teaching pool, a lazy river, or a gym. The old pool still wouldn’t meet current seismic or building codes, and would continue to have limited parking and cramped weightrooms. Are all those improvements and amenities worth an extra $150 million to Victorians? This Saturday, we will find out.
Ross Crockford would use a new Crystal Pool, but fears its cost will overwhelm everything else the City of Victoria needs to do.
Read a related commentary by Leslie Campbell here.
- Read more...
- 0 comments
- 3,972 views