New pool a “priority” for the Town, plan to finish by 2025

Whether the Town will have a partner in the M.D. is not yet determined. 

The Town of Bonnyville is going ahead “full bore” with a new pool, Mayor Elisa Brosseau says.

After talks surrounding the second draft of the budget, Brosseau spoke on Friday that this council sees the pool as a priority and will be moving forward.

“We see it as a priority. We hear residents loud and clear. It is one thing that we continue to hear from residents,” Brosseau told Lakeland Connect. 

“Initially, we were looking long term to 2028. But now we’re looking at 2025 for a completion date, so we’re going to start that process now looking at schematics and looking at some engineer drawings, and hopefully try to go out and find some partners and some grants and all that kind of fun stuff.” 

The Town and M.D. of Bonnyville were jointly involved in the Regional Aquatics Committee and funding the Bonnyville Regional Aquatics Centre Visioning and Feasibility Study in years past.

By signalling an intention to move ahead, the Town will have to see what the M.D. determines, because the design and location could be impacted. The Town wouldn’t be able to build at the Centennial Centre without the M.D. on board.

“Hopefully the M.D. comes on board. We don’t know, they have not come to the table yet to discuss that. The feasibility study which came out said that the best place in town to have that would be over at the C2, right? So we at this point, we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like,” said Brosseau. 

Concept drawing that featured the new facility located at the Centennial Centre. 

“Mixed feelings,” Reeve says

Reeve Barry Kalinski said more discussions are needed from the M.D.’s perspective before going ahead.

“We’re kind of on the fence right now to be honest, we’re supposed to be meeting with town in not too distant future here,” Kalinski told Lakeland Connect. 

“We have mixed feelings…I think the building of it is one thing, but it’s the maintenance of it after that’s the real thing, right? Depends on how much they want to invest in and how big of a pool they’re gonna make as well,” he said. 

In January 2022, the consultant firm RC Strategies + PERC and BR2 Architecture presented to Town Council after extensive engagement with residents and presented two conceptual ideas for a new pool.

Both designs included a main pool with six lanes, separate leisure aquatics, such as a lazy river, splash features, among others, a water slide, birthday party/flex room, change rooms, viewing area, among others. The capital cost estimates, which could change as the original numbers are based on 2019 dollars, ranges from $20.05-million and $21.86-million.

Following this presentation, the Town agreed to go after a new pool in principle.

Earmarked in the capital budget for 2025 for a new pool is a line item of $30 million, with $18 million as listed as a grant.

Operational costs for a new pool at the time of the 2019 study was listed as $850,000.

“I need to give a huge kudos to my council, they weren’t there last term, but they knew at that time as a resident, how important it was to the community, and they’re continuing on and they see it as a priority, too,” said Brosseau. 

The Town of Bonnyville is hosting a budget open house on Tuesday, Dec. 6.