It's stupid to demolish Crystal Pool without a deal for a new one

Today the Times Colonist published an op-ed I wrote examining the replacement of Crystal Pool, the most expensive project in the City of Victoria’s history. I had to trim the piece to fit the TC, so here's the original, with photos and links to supporting documents.

 

The City of Victoria recently announced that it is closing Crystal Pool on September 25 — and starting demolition soon after — to keep construction of the new pool replacing it “on time and on budget.” 

Trouble is, the project schedule already seems to be shifting, and the true cost of building the new pool remains a mystery.

On March 13, 2025, Victoria’s Council ratified the decisions made by voters to spend up to $209 million on the new pool, and build it on the site of the existing one. But councillors also worried that the $120 million in the budget for construction wouldn’t be enough, and asked when they would see more precise cost estimates. 

City staff and consultants repeatedly told councillors they would see the schematic design of the new pool, along with a “Class C” cost estimate, in the spring of 2026. (See 3:30:00 and 3:50:40 of the meeting here.)

That design and estimate still haven’t appeared. What happened?

The City is using a “construction manager at risk” model for delivering the pool. Under that model, a company builds a project for a fixed price, taking the risk that it might cost more. 

Last October, the City asked for bids on the job. Five companies submitted proposals, along with their rough “Class D” estimates for the cost of building the facility with all the amenities the City had advertised, including a 50-metre main pool, a leisure pool, hot pools, a fitness studio, a gymnasium, multipurpose rooms, and underground parking for 100 cars. The City said it expected to choose the firm in December.

But no announcement came. Instead, this past March, the City issued another request for bids, this time for geotechnical consultants. 

The footprint of the new pool will be bigger than the existing one, so the City needed areas around the old pool drilled and analyzed in a hurry. The underground parking (blue outline in photo above) is planned to go below the front of the existing pool, for example, even though bedrock visibly sticks out nearby. 

The geotech work was scheduled to start in April. Did the results affect the project? That hasn’t been made public either.

This June, the City finally announced it had hired Etro-Durwest to manage the construction. Upon hearing the news, I filed a Freedom of Information request for the Class D estimates of the bidding companies, to see if they thought the pool would cost more than the $120 million budgeted for its construction.

City staff said they had 51 pages of relevant documents, but refused to let me see them. Release of the estimates, they said, could “harm the negotiating position” of the City. 

The City is still negotiating because the designs aren’t finished, and we don’t have a deal to build the new pool. 

“Once the design phase is complete, the work will be tendered and converted into a stipulated price contract,” the City told me. (For anyone interested, the no-price contract we have so far is here.) “Once the construction contracts have been awarded, the City will consider what further information can be released.” 

The City said it expects to have designs, and a deal, next spring. 

Unfortunately, that’s well after this October’s municipal election. 

Voters deserve to know just how much the bidding companies think it will cost to build the pool, because the Council they elect may face some hard choices. 


At that March 2025 meeting, councillors passed a motion stating the total budget for the new pool “will not exceed” $209 million. Several councillors expressed concern that any overruns would have to be covered by big property-tax increases, or deep cuts to City services. 

Staff reassured them that there’s lots of padding in the budget, including $31.8 million for escalation in the cost of construction.


But the pool budget was created in the spring of 2024. Since then, the cost of non-residential construction in Victoria has increased by 5.12%, so $6.14 million of the cushion is likely already gone. How much will contractors add to offset the risk of costs going up even more between now and when the pool finally opens?

If there are overruns and the next Council won’t increase the pool budget, they’ll have to cut amenities. This has happened elsewhere. In 2021, North Vancouver shrank the pool in its Harry Jerome Centre from 50 metres to 25 to stay on budget. Vancouver recently did the same to its planned downtown aquatic centre, enraging swim clubs and other users who are now suing that city, arguing it violated the terms of its borrowing referendum. 

Politicians often dodge speculative questions when in office, so an election campaign is a good time to ask them. If the new pool goes over budget, what will you do? Increase taxes or cut amenities? Which ones? 


(Me, I’d lose the underground parking. There’s a big lot a block away at the arena, and as Council constantly tells us, we all should be cycling and taking transit. It would be idiotic to spend $200 million and end up with a pool smaller than the original.)


Recent letters have asked that Crystal Pool stay open until the City repairs the former YMCA, to allow swimming lessons to continue. The current Council could also keep it open to use as a bargaining chip.

Call me naive, but if anything harms the City’s negotiating position, it’s demolishing a still-functioning asset without a deal for its replacement. Once the old pool is gone, we will have to pay everything the contractors demand.