Park board commissioners heard Monday that Vancouver’s Kitsilano pool is still leaking water and replacement of the iconic outdoor saltwater facility — and an estimated price tag — is still years away.
Carrie Hughes, the city’s director of facilities management and operational excellence, said close to $4 million has been invested to keep the pool running since it was damaged in a king tide event in January 2022.
Some major repairs in the summer allowed the pool to open Aug. 7.
“The pool is in a much better situation, but it is still an end-of-life asset,” Hughes said. “We are looking at reimagining what the Kits pool will be and getting a new pool at some stage. But that is some years away, and we're just keeping it going as long as we can.”
1.8M litres of water per day
In the spring, an assessment of the pool found 1.8 million litres of water per day was being lost. The loss of water, which included the necessary chemicals to operate the pool, forced Vancouver Coastal Health to deny the city a permit to open at the beginning of June.
Hughes said the amount of water leaking from the pool has been significantly reduced since the repairs in the summer.
“I don't have a specific amount, we're still in the process of actually measuring that right now, and so we're working with our engineering team in order to get the calculation,” she said.
“It has been reduced significantly, and we're having far less issues with regards to water loss.”
Since the pool closed for the year in September, a contractor hired by the city has been continuing with repairs, which involves replacing pipes and fixing the pool’s membrane. A custom pool liner to reduce the need for annual membrane repairs is also part of the budget.
Hughes said she expected the upgrades to last “quite an extensive amount of time.”
Meanwhile, the city and park board are preparing to conduct a feasibility study on replacing the pool and developing a renewal plan for the adjacent beach area that includes landscaping and restoration.
$170 million to $210 million
Commissioner Tom Digby suggested the price of a new Kitsilano pool would be in the range of $170 million to $210 million, a dollar figure he based on the cost to replace the Vancouver Aquatic Centre.
Digby said the park board has committed $2 million towards the feasibility study. At Monday's park board meeting, he asked Courtney Healey, the city’s project manager for the renewal of Kitsilano pool, to elaborate on what the study will examine.
“Do you think it's going to give us a large range of designs to consider?” he said.
“Because we had people appealing desperately to retain the 137-metre pool. However, other people who are also well informed, say we should have two or three pools. Then people are talking about an indoor pool or a seasonally indoor pool. Are all these options potentially on the table? Is there anything that's been ruled out?”
Healey: “We are committed to exploring options that replace the 137.5-metre long pool that we know and love, options that look at multiple pools, options that extend the season. Those are the things that I expect to bring back to this group for discussion next year. We're looking for the most viable and feasible options in terms of climate resilience and all the other factors that we're looking at on this site.”
Steve Kellock, the park board's director of recreation, said the Kitsilano pool renewal project is a priority for the city's sponsorship, advertising, naming and donation initiative.
“What that shapes up to look like is still to be determined, and something we could bring back to the board at a later date,” Kellock told commissioners. “But there is going to be more than one approach in terms of how we secure funding, but debt funding will be a portion of that.”
The closure and subsequent repairs of the pool this summer meant a 48-day opening as compared to 93 days in 2023. Total visits in 2023 were 135,581. That number dropped to 42,364 this past season.
