Vancouver City Council to decide on controversial new 25-metre West End pool | Daily Hive

Vancouver City Council set to decide on controversial new 25-metre West End pool

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

The matter of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre project will be up before Vancouver City Council this week for a further funding request to support the escalation in its construction cost.

This follows the Vancouver Park Board’s decision earlier this spring to endorse a design with a 25-metre, eight-lane lap swimming pool for the new facility’s primary tank.

The project has attracted immense controversy within the local swimming community and swim clubs, as this was previously envisioned as a 50-metre, eight-lane, Olympic-sized swimming pool — capable of high-performance training and competitions — replacing the aging facility’s 50-metre tank.

At the time this direction was made earlier this year, the cost of the facility had already grown from $140 million to $170 million. The $30 million increase is being covered by $8.6 million from a reallocation of the developer-supported Community Amenity Contribution previously slated for the West End Waterfront project, and an additional $22.4 million from the municipal government, which now requires the approval of City Council in the City of Vancouver’s quarterly capital budget update.

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City Council will vote on the $22.4 million additional funding request this week, which is expected to include a discussion on the direction and rationale for a 25-metre pool instead of a 50-metre pool. According to a City staff report, over the last few months, the project’s estimated cost has further increased by $5 million from $170 million to $175 million.

Park Board commissioners endorsed Park Board staff’s recommendation for a 25-metre pool on April 1, after providing Park Board staff with one month to come up with a potential cost-effective and timely solution to commit to a 50-metre pool for the primary tank.

However, Park Board staff — working with architectural firms Acton Ostry Architects and MJMA Architecture and Design — reaffirmed its original findings that there are geotechnical risks at the tight seaside location of Sunset Beach Park, which led the design team to design a new replacement facility that reuses the existing building’s ground footprint.

While the existing facility features a 50-metre, eight-lane pool, the latest optimal modern pool design specifications adopted internationally require a larger pool tank beyond 50 metres, more deck space, and other extra clearances — and therefore, more land area — especially if the facility is to host higher-profile competitions.

A westward expansion of the footprint into the park area to accommodate a 50-metre pool could cost up to $100 million more. This larger footprint also has archaeological considerations and requires special approval from the provincial government.

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

Technical analysis of the potential options for the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (MJMA Architecture & Design/Acton Ostry Architects)

Park Board staff previously warned that pivoting to a 50-metre pool would not only cost more but require that the project go back to the drawing board on a time-intensive redesign process.

Such delays would risk losing $103 million in taxpayer-approved loans to fund the majority of the project’s costs; during the October 2022 civic election, Vancouver voters approved the plebiscite ballot question providing the City with the permission to borrow money for the capital funding required for the project, which was deemed to be a 50-metre pool at the time.

Legally, in order to use this loan, the City is required to award the project’s contract and begin major construction activity by no later than the end of 2026. If this deadline is missed, the City would need to seek voter permission again as a plebiscite ballot question in the October 2026 civic election, but this could interfere with the expected push to ask voters to approve loans to support the new replacement Kitsilano Outdoor Pool and other capital projects. It would also push the start of construction to after 2026, with the likelihood of increased costs due to inflation.

The City is facing growing cost pressures and a wide range of amenity and infrastructure needs due to a growing population and aging facilities. All the while, a persistent housing slowdown is lowering the potential revenues that can be tapped to fund such new projects.

vancouver aquatic centre new concept february 2025

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

A partial collapse of the exterior wall near the main entrance of the aging Vancouver Aquatic Centre in March 2022. (Daily Hive)

The new replacement Vancouver Aquatic Centre project has been expedited since a March 2022 incident, when a section of an exterior wall near the main entrance into the existing facility collapsed — a clear sign of the 1974-built facility’s poor condition and accelerating deterioration.

According to Park Board staff, the recommended design of a 25-metre pool meets the greatest needs of all users and maintains or improves most of the facility’s programming. This new facility also includes a leisure pool with a beach entry and lazy river, a deep diving pool with two towers enabling diving platforms of various heights up to 10 metres, a large hot pool, steam and sauna rooms, a small spectator seating area, and a fitness gym.

Mounting opposition from swim clubs

However, the swim clubs and their membership who use this facility heavily have strongly contested this, given that Vancouver Aquatic Centre is one of only two 50-metre pools in the city — the other being the heavily used Hillcrest Centre. Park Board staff have suggested they will relocate the swim clubs and other groups impacted to Hillcrest Centre, which would see some of its existing programming relocated to other swimming facilities.

In a written request to Mayor Ken Sim and City Council, the leaders of the impacted swim clubs — including Jeannie Low, who is the head of Swim BC and Canadian Dolphin Swim Club — are calling on the City to reject the funding request.

They are urging the City to work with the swim community and the Park Board to “properly design and fund” a new Vancouver Aquatic Centre with a 50-metre pool for the main tank as originally envisioned, and plan and fund the installation of a temporary pool facility to accommodate the 1,000 or more current users of the existing pool who will be displaced during construction.

As geotechnical issues are an issue for the existing location of the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, they also suggest that other sites should be contemplated for providing a new replacement facility to enable a 50-metre pool.

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

They also raised concerns that the decision to shift from a 50-metre pool to a 25-metre pool was first communicated to the public, swim clubs, and other stakeholders only at a very late stage in the design and planning process — in a Park Board staff report in February 2025 — leaving little opportunity for meaningful consultation or exploration of alternative solutions.

“Most concerning is how late in the process the site constraints, land tenure and other risks were brought forward to the Park Board Commissioners and the public. Given the impressive qualifications and experience of the design consultants engaged on the project, it is incredible that site constraints and other risks were not identified and raised with the Board and the public soon after their engagement in 2023,” reads the open letter ahead of this week’s City Council meeting.

“The consultants and the Park Board staff were given, and should have understood, the very clear priorities of the community. These priorities were dramatically changed without meaningful consultation with either the Park Board Commissioners or the community. The Incomplete Plan was presented very late in the planning and capital process.”

As of the time of writing, an online petition in support of a 50-metre pool has grown to over 15,000 signatures.

Furthermore, they assert that if the 25-metre concept goes ahead, it will “set back the replacement of a much-needed 50-metre pool by a decade or more” and result in the “catastrophic loss of a much-needed training and recreational facility used by diverse groups of all ages and abilities.”

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

Future of 50-metre pools in Vancouver

The controversy surrounding this project and the lack of 50-metre pools in Vancouver became an issue during the recent Vancouver City Council by-election, with the ABC Vancouver party promising to begin the planning work for a new aquatic centre in South Vancouver with a 50-metre pool.

In early June, Park Board commissioners approved a member motion by ABC commissioner Jaspreet Virdi calling on Park Board staff to expedite the exploration of a new 50-metre pool in South Vancouver, which is an area of the city currently underserved by community and recreational facilities.

This follows a rejection of a similar motion by Virdi earlier in the spring, but the latest motion that saw approval was also backed by Vancouver Granville MP Taleeb Noormohammed, Vancouver Fraserview-South Burnaby MLA Gregor Robertson, and Vancouver-Langara MLA Sunita Dhir, as well as Langara College and a number of other community groups.

“South Vancouver lost two community pools in recent years: Sunset and the Langara YMCA. These recreational facilities were closed despite population growth and without a solid plan for replacement, which has created a pressure point for amenities in the community,” reads Robertson’s letter.

“Whether the infrastructure is in Sunset, Champlain, or in the River District, it will be an asset that will be well-utilized by residents. The Southeast quadrant of Vancouver is underserved, with a fast-growing population in the River District.”

February 2025 preliminary concept of the new Vancouver Aquatic Centre. (Acton Ostry Architects/MJMA Architecture and Design)

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