The city’s Capital Project’s Manager says its possible that renovation work at the Canada Games Pool could start earlier than planned.

The facility was expected to close for six months at the end of June, but Darren Crundwell says it doesn’t mean the work will be completed early, because of new social distancing requirements.

“We’re going to get this thing done on time. But you know we’ve got a much smaller working space and there’s trades on top of trades and activities and tasks on top of activities and tasks,” he said.

“The whole project team has really though how we can get this done and do it safely. But having said that, nobody has done a lot of work in this environment yet, so we’re still guessing at how efficient we can be with some of the tasks.”

Renovations will see the building’s nearly 30 year old envelope upgraded at a cost of about $13.5 million. It includes replacing the roof, the HVAC system, the electrical and mechanical systems as well as boilers and lights in the building.

“We were waiting until the end of June because of a swim meet, and obviously that swim meet is not happening anymore, it’s been cancelled,” Crundwell added.

“There are some opportunities to get in there. We’re still waiting. There’s still some things that we are doing on the design front and what not, but we may do some work early – some demolition work – and try and get ahead of the schedule.”

He says working inside the facility could be a little more challenging than some other large capital projects like the Victoria Street West project, which is done outside.

“It’s a little easier in certain situations to practice social distancing,” Crundwell added. “I’m not going to say we’ll finish early, but we’re still confident that we’re going to finish on time, but what starting early will give us a better idea of what the impacts are going to be on our productivity.”

Speaking to NL News at the end of January, Crundwell says the city thinks it was able to get $2.5 million worth of grant funding for the work, because the scope of ‘significant sustainability and accessibility improvements’ that is part of the work.