The Vancouver Aquatic Centre (VAC) has been closed indefinitely after a piece of concrete fell from the facility’s roof into the pool on Monday.
The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation said on Monday evening that the pool was temporarily closed due to an “operational issue.”
On Tuesday, Steve Jackson, the general manager of Vancouver’s water parks and recreation, confirmed that something fell in the pool, according to Global News.
“A patron did notice a splash in the pool, and upon further investigation, there was a piece of concrete spalling that we believe fell from the roof,” Jackson said, according to Global News.
“So out of an abundance of caution, we did close the pool and evacuate patrons just to make sure that now our facilities team can go in there and do some work and inspect and understand what’s going on there before we reopen it, making sure that that facility is safe.”
The pool, built in 1974, has been dealing with similar issues over the last few years, including having to temporarily close in February 2024 after a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling. In 2022, the facility suffered roof damage to its entrance.
Jackson said the facilities team is investigating the cause of the latest issue with the pool.
“Early obvious thoughts are, again, this is an aging facility,” he said. “We do have our plans in place to renew that in the coming year. And so, not surprised, we actually do have netting up in the aquatic centre in certain areas where we’ve seen some of this in the past. This is a new finding in where that happened.
“We’re just making sure that we’ve done the work to make sure that the facility is safe and we’re sort of doing that with an abundance of caution,” he said, noting that its too early to say when it the pool could reopen.
“Again, we don’t want a piece of concrete falling on a patron while they’re swimming and we want to make sure that everyone in the pool is operating in a safe way.”
This past April, the Vancouver Park Board approved a $175 million renovation plan for the VAC that will replace its 50-meter pool with a 25-meter pool. Renovations are scheduled to begin by the end of 2026 and reopen in 2029.
The decision was met with plenty of backlash from the community, with the VAC being one of just two Olympic-sized pools in the city, the other being at UBC. There is also the famed outdoor Kitsilano pool, which is 137 meters long, but due to weather, it is only open a few months of the year.
There were also talks of building a new 50-meter pool in South Vancouver earlier this year, though the Park Board shut the proposal down in April.
Poor taxpayers, paying 176 million dollars to renovate a pool facility!!! Corruption alert, undertable deals with shabby contractors like what J. Treadu did for years, Arrivecan application … why people don’t question our Local and Provincial and Federal Governments ???
Building a 25 meter pool in its place is such stupidity. VAC is always busy with tons and tons of people using the 50 meter lanes to swim laps. Like it’s a highly utilized facility – and it’s a community center. Built for people to use. How they arent building a similar facility shows just how corrupt the parks board is.. They have the space – even if they built the entire thing again new- keeping the old footprint it would be a huge improvement
aw why open it now
New swimming-related fear unlocked
A bit of a conspiracy theory, but I wonder if it’s possible that the city did it on purpose to justify building a new pool as new information came out that they have been hiding reports that says keeping the existing pool is absolutely an option, and a better financial decision.
https://saveourvacpool.ca/breaking-ausenco-renovation-study-and-rfeoi-expansion-details/
The hiding of research and studies to support a full 50m pool renewal has def been found to be true.
But as a member and coach of a masters team that uses the aquatic centre, the closure and due to pieces of concrete falling… Is not conspiracy.
The true conspiracy is why the studies and findings were hidden and not shown to the Vancouver parks board by hired members of staff
I agree the true conspiracy is hiding the findings from the public. The parks board and city decided upon themselves they wanted to increase the cost and build, what they considered a world class facility despite the public wanting a world class 50m pool.
There are around 20 fitness centres just downtown but only one 50m pool for tens of km and they want to destroy it. We don’t need another gym. We need a pool. Figure it out.
Hopefully, they won’t use this event to shut the pool and start construction prior to going to court regarding their conniving ways. Now that’s a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy in the sense that the concrete falling was caused by the city on purpose to support their claim that the building is unsafe.
Oh this is actually such a tuff theory bro the city is mean