Pembroke, Ont. community pool closed until at least fall 2024

The City of Pembroke has closed its Kinsmen community pool for safety reasons.

The city announced late Friday night the closure of the pool, citing structural safety concerns, primarily of the building's walls and roof.

The 67-year-old Kinsmen pool and 51-year-old building is described as "at its end of life," according to a recent report to the city.

"We were thinking snow, rain, high winds, those sort of things. We'd probably not want to have the pool open or at least not occupied with people in that area," said Tashi Dwivedi with HP Engineering, when addressing Pembroke's council on the state of the Kinsmen pool on December 11, 2023.

"To put a new envelope (shell) on it, and it’s part of our budget package, is somewhere around $1.3 million," said Mayor of Pembroke, Ron Gervais.

Pembroke city council has decided to postpone renovations on the pool instead of opting to explore the creation of a new recreation complex, which would house a pool, skating rinks and other public amenities.

The cost of building a new pool on its own was quoted at more than $40 million, which is outside of the city's budget.

The creation of a new recreation complex would be funded through a public-private partnership, referred to as P3.

"If it comes back that a P3 is an option, what I understand from staff is that we will have no pool facility for five to seven years, in addition to 2024," said Gervais.

Gervais adds he expects the results of the P3 exploration to come in the fall of 2024. He says the pool will remain closed with minimal maintenance until at least then.

"The majority of council's view is why invest that money into the shell when this pool may be knocked down," Gervais added.

It's a frustrating situation for many pool users and parent.

"Not only was it something fun and exciting for my son, it was also beneficial for (physical) therapy," said Katherine Walczyk, who brings her two-year-old son from Killaloe to the pool every Saturday for exercise.

What's more frustrating is that the Kinsmen pool only reopened Dec. 11, 2023 after investments to install a new pump and heating equipment.

"It was closed down for 10 weeks and it was fixed," said Walczyk, "and then we had come back and we had gotten one lesson out of eight."

The city says refunds will be given regarding swimming lessons.

But for families like Walczyk's, who rely on the community pool regularly, it's a frustrating realization that the local pool may be closed for upwards of seven years.

"I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing in the meantime because this is literally my closest pool to where we were living," added Walczyk.