The City’s Parks and Civic Facilities Manager says the city did not want to overlap a six week closure at Westsyde Pool with a six month closure at the Canada Games Pool later this year.

Jeff Putnam says that was one of the critical conditions for staff while planning for the upgrades at the two pools over the last several months.

“There was a ton of work done here in the late fall and early winter with our design group and our contractors to get ready to go and everyone is set to go, and we’re really highly confident that we’ll achieve our objectives to have it reopen by May 11,” said Putnam.

Westsyde Pool will be closed from March 23 until May 11, while Canada Games Pool is set to be closed from June 29 until January 2, 2021.

“We’re doing everything we can to minimize the impacts on our user groups but we also understand that there will be impacts and we’re working hard to reduce them,” added Putnam.

At Canada Games Pool, crews will be replacing the HVAC and mechanical systems just like they will at Westsyde Pool, but at the same time, they will be replacing the roof and the walls, which was done at Westsyde Pool back in 2016.

“Going forward later this summer, we’ll have the Canada Games Pool closed, but we’ll have Brock pool open during the summer and we’re going to extend the hours of both Brock and Westsyde pool while Canada Games Pool is down,” noted Putnam.

This latest work at Westsyde Pool will cost $1.3-million, while the work at Canada Games Pool will cost $13.5-million.