Pool committee makes its case for new aquatics centre

The City of Prince Albert will look into building a new aquatics facility in a new report, which will not come to council until the new year.

City council voted to receive and file information it received from a new pool committee looking to bring such a facility to Prince Albert. The information will be forwarded to the department of community services.

Members of the committee filled the seats in one half of the gallery during Monday evening’s council meeting.  Roger Boucher, who helped to organize the new aquatics centre committee, made the presentation to council.

“Prince Albert is currently the last major centre in the province to build a new aquatics centre,” he said.

Boucher then told members of council that many Prince Albert residents drive one-hour to Melfort to use that city’s pool and facility, which includes features such as a wave generator, water slides, hot tub and dry bar.

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“Offering a variety of programs for all ages, this small city has created a wide-reaching, income drawing potential for a single facility,” he added.

Boucher, the head coach of the Prince Albert Sharks, said the construction of a new aquatics centre in Prince Albert would give 60,000 people living in the surrounding area another reason to visit the city. As well, he said it would create opportunities for positive recreational choices for youth.

He said that with the existing facilities, space has been an issue, restricting the growth of the club. Water quality and air quality has been a problem. Boucher said that air quality was behind Prince Albert losing a swim meet to Moose Jaw after other clubs complained about air quality at the host facility in this city.

Ideally for Boucher, a new aquatics centre would include a 10-lane, 50-metre pool surrounded by bleachers, with water slides, a lazy river, teaching pool, splash park and would accommodate diving.

Coun. Mark Tweidt, who took his children, now in their 20s to Melfort on a regular basis to use that city’s aquatics facility.

“I’m a huge proponent of a pool, and I think there are others one here [council] that are. It’s just a matter of finding it,” he said.

He added that he hoped that the people of Prince Albert would get behind this – the call for a new aquatics centre – and said it would be “huge for the community and those abroad.”

Support for a new aquatics centre is also coming from the local business community. RNF Ventures sent a letter to Mayor Greg Dionne and city council backing the efforts of the new aquatics centre committee.

“We believe having someone with our experience involved in the early stages of a project such as this can provide very good value engineering as the project is developed. We will again offer our services to the City to help with budgeting and project development, with no strings attached,” president of RNF Ventures Kelly Miller wrote.

The City is currently developing a 10-year plan for facilities, and Dionne said this will be a part of the discussion. The hope is to present this plan in the new year.

“Because they are right,” he said after the meeting, “we have aging facilities. Both the Frank [J.] Dunn pool and the Rivier Academy pool are aging and they don’t meet our demands. And we have more demands actually for the aquatic fun part of the park than we do the lanes.”

The process of looking into building a new aquatics centre would include a consultation with outside communities, including rural municipalities and First Nations.

Dionne said this is because the City wants user fees. If other communities don’t want to contribute, he said that the City will look into bringing in a different structure for users who live outside of the City. Such a policy would be enforced by checking the address on the IDs of all users and giving a discounted rate to Prince Albert residents.

But the creation of a new aquatics centre wouldn’t mean the end of the Kinsmen Water Park. Dionne said the City is still focused on the water park.

“That’s on our agenda today. That process is moving forward. We’ve got more commitments on donating to that facility, so I’m quite confident that next year we’ll be working on getting it [the water slides] open.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames