New Burnaby Aquatic Centre goes back to drawing board due to cost overruns

New Burnaby Lake Aquatic Centre goes back to drawing board due to cost overruns

Cancelled design: Artistic rendering of Burnaby Lake Aquatic and Arena Facility. (HCMA/City of Burnaby)

Due to significant cost escalation, the City of Burnaby is going back to the drawing board on its design and planning process for building a new replacement and expanded aquatic and recreational centre at Burnaby Lake.

Burnaby City Council endorsed City staff’s recommendations in a meeting on Monday, including the measure to terminate the involvement of the project’s lead design firm, HCMA Architecture & Design.

The decision is also paired with changing the City’s existing construction management contract with Ventana Construction Corporation, a design-build contract worth $73.2 million.

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Following a bidding process in November 2022, Ventana had originally been awarded the main construction contractor contract. Construction at the site of 3676 Kensington Avenue had already begun this past spring, with the demolition of the 1960s-built CG Brown Memorial Pool, which had been closed since October 2022 in preparation for the redevelopment.

cg brown memorial pool burnaby lake demolished april 2023 f

The old CG Brown Memorial Pool at Burnaby Lake was demolished in mid-April 2023. (City of Burnaby)

Cancelled design: Layout of Burnaby Lake Aquatic and Arena Facility. (HCMA/City of Burnaby)

Cancelled design: Conceptual artistic rendering of Burnaby Lake Aquatic and Arena Facility. (HCMA/City of Burnaby)

“Recent construction tender packages have come in significantly over budget predominantly due to price escalation in current market conditions. Initial value engineering exercises have not provided a sufficient cost reduction to bring the project back near target cost,” reads a new City staff report.

“Staff has recognized that the project as currently designed cannot be constructed for the approved budget and has decided to abandon the current project and terminate the agreement with project architect HCMA.”

Due to the steep escalation in construction costs related to materials, equipment, and labour, especially since early 2022, City staff note the new design may result in a smaller building than originally planned in order to ensure the project can be built within the contractor’s allocated budget.

With Ventana’s role repositioned, they will now lead the redesign and construction of a “new, re-imagined facility” under a design-build model that works with an architect and a team of consultants to implement design and construction activities as one team. According to City staff, they feel this approach — which is commonly used for public capital projects — will be the best way forward.

“We are anticipating some impact to the overall schedule to the project,” said City staff when asked by councillors during the meeting.

“Our anticipation is it’ll likely be a smaller facility, and maybe we can bring back the construction time to something that is similar to the previous project… The challenge is we know we can’t build everything we had originally anticipated within the current budget.”

So far, the municipal government has spent roughly $8 million on the design and planning work previously led by HCMA, but City staff assert these costs will not be wasted as it includes public engagement, with the learnings incorporated into the next project.

HCMA was first contracted in 2019 to perform the design work. The municipal government set aside $187 million in its multi-year capital plan to pursue the project.

City staff said they expect to have more information on the project’s new direction before the end of 2023.

The original design provided a total floor area of over 300,000 sq ft, including 238,000 sq ft for the brand new aquatic centre and replacement ice rink, 10,000 sq ft for the renovation of the existing Bill Copeland Sports Centre lobby, and 57,000 sq ft for retaining and renovating the existing 2,000-seat NHL-sized arena at Bill Copeland Sports Centre.

Cancelled design: Conceptual artistic rendering of Burnaby Lake Aquatic and Arena Facility. (HCMA/City of Burnaby)

The aquatic centre would have featured a new 50-metre, Olympic-sized swimming pool with diving platforms — designed for competition, training, and recreational uses. There would be grandstand seating capacity for 750 spectators, including 550 in an upper seating area and 200 on deck, with space for additional temporary spectator seating during larger-scale competitions.

This is in addition to a 25-metre lap pool, leisure pool, and a family-sized hot pool.

The original project provided a new NHL-sized ice rink with five change rooms and grandstand seating for 200 spectators. This will replace the adjacent Burnaby Lake Arena.

Other components of the previous design entail reception areas, a cafe, a sports hall of fame display area, indoor and outdoor social areas, public art, and vehicle parking both on the surface and underground. The facility’s indoor spaces will be accessed from a central entrance lobby and social space.

To support the building’s uses, there would have been 560 vehicle parking stalls, including 81 stalls in the new underground parkade, 149 ground-level stalls on the site, and 330 stalls on the Sperling Avenue surface parking lot immediately to the east.

This original design already represents a downsized version of what the City had originally planned before the pandemic after it acquired the adjacent 2013-built, 146,000 sq ft Fortius Sport & Health in late 2020 and converted the private elite athlete training centre into Christine Sinclair Community Centre. The $26.6 million acquisition of the facility enabled the municipal government to downsize the scope and reduce the cost of its new aquatic and recreational centre redevelopment.

HCMA previously designed some of Metro Vancouver’s largest aquatic centre projects, including Killarney Community Pool and Hillcrest Centre in Vancouver, Grandview Heights Aquatic Centre in Surrey, the new Minoru Centre for Active Living in Richmond, and the future New Westminster Aquatics and Community Centre. It also designed Burnaby’s new Rosemary Brown Arena, which is expected to open later this year.

The Burnaby Lake redevelopment is one of about half a dozen major community and recreational facility projects being pursued by the City of Burnaby.

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