There will be no stay of execution for the Minoru Aquatic centre in Richmond, once the shiny, new Minoru Centre for Acting Living opens later this year.
In December last year, city staff were making plans to demolish the 57-year-old structure, before city council’s parks and recreation committee asked them to take one last look at re-purposing the building for other uses.
However, after closer examination by staff, it seems that the $3 million cost of levelling the building was much more palatable than the estimated $27 million it would take to bring the crumbling centre up to current building standards.
As such, city council agreed this week to follow a staff recommendation to go ahead with the original plan to flatten the site and, possibly, incorporate it as green space into the bigger Minoru Park Vision Plan, which, itself, is still being constructed.
The pool at the aquatic centre will become obsolete when the new $80 million complex, featuring two, 25-metre pools and a seniors’ centre, is completed in late 2017 across the parking lot, at the former site of the Minoru Pavilion.
The new facility will also feature new change rooms for outdoor athletes.
Before coming to the latest decision, city staff examined the facility’s current condition, the possible types of reuse and the capital funding implications of re-purposing.
In doing so, it was discovered, once more, that extensive replacement of building envelopes, floors and roofs would result in onerous costs, adding up, in part, to the estimated $27 million figure.
Staff also reviewed the possibility of partial demolition of the aquatic centre, but this was dismissed as “cutting in half” the building’s linked mechanical and electrical systems would not be feasible.
Demolition of the building is scheduled for May of 2018.
