Big splash at the University of Victoria’s magnificent new CARSA facility today.
But no splashing at all over at the university’s nearby Ian Stewart Complex.
It is official: They’re pulling the plug on the core’s last outdoor public swimming pool.
It was, in fact, one of the last old-time, traditional outdoor public pools on Vancouver Island.
No more hot-coaling in bare feet across sun-baked poolside concrete. No more shivering when a gust of winds blows through. No more of the al fresco frolicking familiar to those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s.
“I think it stinks,” says Saanich resident Cynthia Reid, who swam at Ian Stewart Complex (some still call it the Racquet Club) three or four times a week, right up until the tank was drained for the winter in October.
She’s not surprised, though. The writing was on the wall when plans were made to shift many of the functions at the aging Ian Stewart facility, which UVic bought from St. Michaels University School for $4.6 million in 1991, to the new on-campus rec centre that is just now opening.
It comes down to math. “The Ian Stewart Complex outdoor pool costs $321,000 annually to operate over a five-month schedule,” the university said on its website. “In 2014, the pool generated less than $30,000 in revenue. A feasibility study of the pool estimates it will cost an additional $445,000 to address deferred/routine maintenance to keep the facility operational for another five years.”
So the half-century-old pool won’t reopen. The arena, tennis courts and offices at the front of the complex will remain, but what happens to the rest of the complex will be determined as part of the year-long update to UVic’s campus plan that began in January. The process included a February open house at which neighbours and others were asked what they would like to see happen at the Ian Stewart site. A draft report is expected this fall, with a final decision — a blueprint for what UVic will look like over the next 10 years — in early 2016.
The university can argue that its mandate is to educate, not operate as a municipal recreation centre, but Reid would still like to have seen it try harder to keep the pool alive for the institution’s neighbours. “UVic is supported by taxpayers,” she argues.
The little six-lane pool, enclosed by walls that gave it a cosy, protected feel, was special to Reid, a nurse who grew up in Saanich. “It just had an ambience that you don’t get in big facilities anymore,” she said. “It was nice to swim in the rain. It was nice to swim in the fog. On a sunny day, it was glorious.”
It is not the last public outdoor pool in Greater Victoria, as some suggest. One was part of the package when the municipality of Langford bought the Mountainside Athletic Club at Bear Mountain for $2.4 million this winter, the idea being to turn it into a north Langford rec centre. The municipality also has five outdoor spray parks now, and has built splendid swimming beaches at Langford Lake and Glen Lake. If you want to get wet in the sunshine, go to Langford.
The Bear Mountain pool is open year-round, which is one of the ways it differs from the outdoor municipal pools built throughout B.C. in the 1950s and 1960s. You’ll still find a few of them in beautifully treed parks of similar vintage: Nanaimo has one in Bowen Park, Courtenay has one at Lewis Park, right near downtown, while Campbell River’s Centennial Pool is in the middle of a residential neighbourhood.
The big shift to indoor pools came in the 1970s, when the federal and provincial governments were throwing money around. Indoor pools make more sense in that they can be used year-round and after dark, and nobody gets rained/snowed on or sunburned.
Still, there was that intoxicating smell of chlorine, fresh-cut grass and hot, wet concrete. …
“It’s sort of sad, eh?” says Reid.
