CITY STAYS THE COURSE
Adie Knox pool to close
City council has approved a “reinvention” of the Adie Knox recreation complex, despite heated opposition to one of its components — shutting down the 51-year-old pool and moving its programs to a new pool being built at the university.
“I'm all in favour of a $42-million investment at Adie Knox and making it a sizzling place,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said Monday night following roughly five hours of debate. It culminated when the councillor for the west-end neighbourhood, Ward 2's Fabio Costante made a motion that would have left the door open to saving the pool while awaiting the outcome of a $13.5-million grant application to the federal government for the project. That motion — which included putting the use agreement between the city and university on hold — was narrowly defeated.
Then a motion from the mayor called for approving the city/university use agreement, moving forward with the application for the grant (with the Adie Knox pool closure), and committing the city's $29-million share of the project with or without the federal grant. It was approved in a 9-2 vote.
“Basically, we are making a very firm financial commitment here and a decision that's not easy to make,” said Ward 10 Coun. Jim Morrison.
The project has been described as converting the aged recreation complex into a “community centre on steroids,” with the gym, program rooms, indoor walking track, music room, art room, fitness centre, commercial kitchen, dance studio, and new outdoor facilities like a basketball court, tennis/pickleball courts, soft-surface playground, walking track and splash pad. As part of the approved motion, the city is moving ahead with some outdoor amenities like the splash pad and playground starting next year.
But the trade-off appears to be losing the pool, which loyal swimmers have defended for at least a decade as the city attempted to close it as part of the business plan for building the downtown aquatic centre. The agreement with the university calls for the city giving $3 million up front and then $200,000 annually for up to 20 years so that Windsorites can use the new pool that's part of the university's $73-million Lancer Centre project. The pool should be ready next May or June and provide 93 per cent of the programming happening at Adie Knox, swimmers have been assured.
But on Monday they continued their skeptical view of the promises and remained protective of their old pool, which has been closed since the start of the pandemic.
“Adie Knox operates 14 hours daily, how can the university accommodate 93 per cent of its programming plus the university students?” asked Rene Jaques, a member of the group Friends of Adie Knox, who said the switch to the university means the loss of diving as well as the city's only public therapy pool. The city says that the switch will help it avoid about $4 million in repairs needed to the Adie Knox pool, plus capital costs in the future, and about $173,000 a year in operational costs even when the $200,000 paid to the university is taken into account. Over 20 years, the city says it would save
$14.76 million by switching aquatics to the university.
But swimmers like Jaques said the city should keep the pool as part of the Adie Knox expansion plans. “Be like other responsible building owners and maintain your facilities,” he said.
Linda Mackenzie who chairs the Friends, told council that the bottom line is her members don't trust what the city is promising.
“It's been said that we just don't like change, that's not it,” she said. “We represent people who, when we compare what we're being offered to what we have, we don't want what's offered. We choose Adie Knox, we need Adie Knox.”
Costante made a motion that some councillors did not appear to understand when they voted on it. It called for still applying for the federal grant with the pool removed, but to not enter into the use agreement with the university so that the decision on closing the pool could be made at a later date. Once the word on the federal grant arrives, the city would consult with the public, work with third party groups like the Unemployed Help Centre and the Windsor Family Health Team which have expressed interest in locating at Adie Knox, engage with CUPE on possible contract conflicts, and get a finalized budget on the project.
“There's still a lot of information
I'm unsettled with,” Costante said.
“To ask residents to do away with the pool without knowing how much, and when things will happen at Adie Knox, to me is not responsible.”
Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin and Ward 4 Coun. Chris Holt were the only two who voted against the mayor's motion.
“Overwhelmingly we hear that this (Adie Knox) pool means so much to so many people,” said Holt.
Bortolin described the entire process as a mess that was rushed forward with scant public consultation and a flawed public survey. He was particularly critical of where the $3 million up-front payment to the university was coming from — a $3.7 million account set up a decade ago to help convert closed pools (Adie Knox and Water World) into community centres. He supported Costante's earlier motion because, he said, it would have moved the project cautiously forward without committing to closing the pool.
“Forty-two million dollars is not chump change,” he said. “We can make a generational improvement to Adie Knox. They deserve it, it has always deserved it and it should start with leaving the pool and adding the gym, the track and the community rooms.”