The UBC pool has seen better days.
The aquatic centre’s sauna, weight room, two steam rooms and bathrooms are closed until June due to a chlorine leak that was discovered April 29. The changing rooms and pool remain open, but according to longtime users of the university pool, the closures are no surprise given what they say is the lack of maintenance the facility has seen in the past eight years.
“I swim five to six times a week but I go to Hillcrest or Vancouver Aquatic Centre now because the UBC pool is in such bad shape,” said Ivan Szasz, a member of the UBC Masters Swimming Club.
Before the university’s athletics department took over responsibility of the aquatic centre in 2006, “it was in pristine shape,” according to Szasz. Since then, there have been multiple unscheduled shutdowns of the pool and other facilities such as the showers and steam rooms have gradually degraded. The men’s steam room and sauna has been out of operation for more than five years, although the women’s (now co-ed) sauna has only been closed for six months.
Chris Neale was the facilities manager at the UBC Aquatic Centre for 16 years until 2006. UBC Athletics consulted with him last month when a main valve in the aquatic centre broke.
He called the state of the facilities “unsightly.”
The main valve needed to be replaced and as a result the pool was closed from April 2 to 22. According to Linda Finch, the senior manager of programs and operations for UBC Athletics and Recreation, general maintenance was done during that time as well. Finch, who was hired in December 2013, recognizes that the pool has not been well maintained in recent years.
“Those annual shutdowns should occur every one to two years. My understanding was that there hadn’t been a shutdown for a few years,” she said. She told the Courier that from now on, pool maintenance would be done every one to two years.
UBC’s facilities department is optimistic about the pool’s future. “Clearly we’ve had a lot of issues in the past few months but there’s been a lot of effort put in to make sure these issues don’t keep reoccurring,” said director Kavie Toor.
According to Toor, the pool’s repair and maintenance budget last year was $590,000. However, Neale said that while he was pool manager, when the student union owned the aquatic centre, it took about $800,000 per year to maintain the facilities. That amount included the upkeep of the outdoor pool, which was shut down permanently in February.
Neale questions the thoroughness of last month’s pool maintenance. Regular annual pool maintenance, like the one Hillcrest Community Centre preformed last month, takes on average four to five weeks to complete. The UBC pool had not had annual maintenance for eight years. The UBC pool’s maintenance and valve replacement took 20 days.
The pool’s woes are not caused by old age or poor design.
“It’s a tragedy because this facility is one of the best built facilities around,” said Neale, who has managed several aquatic centres in the Lower Mainland including Watermania in Richmond.
Szasz compares the situation with his experience in Hungary, where he was raised. “I swam in the pool I grew up in last May, which was built in 1936 and it’s still in perfectly good condition,” he said. “It’s just a matter of maintenance.”
UBC is planning to build a new aquatic centre that will include a 50-metre competition pool, a 25-metre recreational pool and a hot tub. Construction was scheduled to begin in the spring but has now been delayed until early July, according to Finch. The new facility’s completion date is anticipated to be in 2016.
UBC Athletics intends to keep the aquatic centre open until then.
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