To demolish or not to demolish is no longer the question with respect to the Big Hill Leisure Pool – the town’s only plunge station for the last 30-plus years until the Jayman BUILT Aquatic Centre opened this summer.
This week the awarded contractor, Visco Demolition, will begin to dismantle the facility. The Edmonton-based contractor came in with an aggressive bid of $264,000 – around one-third of the budgeted $740,000 to demolish the old pool site.
The decision is sitting well with new Mayor Jeff Genung, who would like to see whatever is rebuilt there – be it an arts and cultural hub or seniors centre – remain designated for public service.
“Administration, to their credit, took the 30 days to review tenders and in that time, allowed the new council to get up to speed … ultimately council agreed with the decision to demolish the old pool,” said Genung.
“(If repurposed) we would still be left with an old building that was purpose-built to be a pool and now we would be retro-fitting it for something else.”
Genung said his ears were initially perked when he heard about the $750,000 price tag.
Over the last couple of weeks, he learned that the original figure was a high estimate with big contingencies built-in until the true condition of the building, including asbestos levels, were determined.
This environmental impact assessment was not conducted until September – following the closure and decommissioning of the site and revealed that only minor abatement for asbestos was required.
Greg Barsi, facilities manager for the town, said the contractor was able to come in with such a competitive bid because they would be able to recycle much of the material by selling it back to the commodities market.
“They saw it as an opportunity to source materials for recycling,” said Barsi.
Around 98 per cent of the materials from site demo will be diverted from the landfill.
According to Barsi, although the tender to demolish the building coincided with election week, the town was “not rushing into this” as site demo had been planned during the process of building the new pool and was approved through reserve funding by the last council back in May.
There are also costs associated with ensuring the building is not vandalized and ensuring pipes do not freeze, which were also considerations to move forward as soon as possible for demolition.
“The bottom line is a pool, generally speaking, is a fairly corrosive environment … we can’t just open the doors and let it be a seniors centre or a library or a women’s shelter without major renovations,” said Barsi, explaining that to remediate the facility up to modern day standards would be both extensive and expensive.
Through the tender process, 17 contractors attended the pre-tender meeting and 10 bids came forward including a proposal to repurpose the site – prompted by local resident and developer Ken Blair.
The proposal to repurpose came in over $2.1 million, but was not officially included in the request for proposals process by the town – as the town’s RFP only laid out specs for demolition.
Barsi commended Blair for prompting the conversation to consider that possibility but even at a glance, the cost comparison to repurpose the site would not prove cost effective.
Site demo will take around six weeks.
