Centennial Pool to close for months of renovations

Halifax's Centennial Pool is shutting its doors during the latter-half of the year, putting a damper on one of the city’s diving clubs.

The closure is the third phase of significant upgrades to the 45-year-old facility.

But Centennial is one of two fifty metre pools in the city, and the only pool in the Maritimes with a 10 metre platform for diving.

Robert Breau of the Cygnus Diving Club said he’s all for renovations, but he was disappointed to hear the pool would be closed for months, starting in mid-August.

"It really has an effect on all of our athletes," he said. "Plus it’s going to be hard to keep staff. I’m going to have to lay off people and they may not come back, or find other jobs."

Brendan Elliott, a spokesperson for HRM, says the city looked at keeping the pool open during the work, but decided it wouldn’t be safe.

The pool recently had mechanical and electrical upgrades, and solar panels installed.

"We’re trying to do everything we can to accommodate everyone," Elliott said. "But in this situation, because you’ve got heavy machinery in there, there may be electrical outages... We just felt that the priority is the safety of our patrons and we just couldn’t keep the facility open through the time that we needed to do these kinds of renovations."

The first two rounds of renovations cost about $4 million. This third phase will involve the changing rooms and the front lobby area.

"A lot of work has been done behind the scenes on the facility. This is about making the place look as good as it can."

Elliott said once the renovations are complete, the pool will have a 20 year life span.