'Academic mission needs to be our priority': UNB to close Sir Max Aitken Pool next year

The Sir Max Aitken Pool and the Lady Beaverbrook Gym at the University of New Brunswick will close in the fall of 2018. 

"We have a strong desire to keep a pool on our Fredericton campus, but our academic mission needs to be our priority," UNB president Eddy Campbell said in an email Wednesday confirming the closure.

'The Sir Max Aitken Pool is past its useful life.'- Eddy Campbell, UNB president

"Therefore, we recently made the difficult decision to move ahead with plans to decommission the Lady Beaverbrook Gym in the fall of 2018."

For nearly a century, Campbell said, UNB has provided an aquatics space for the community — first with the Lady Beaverbrook Residence Pool and later the Sir Max Aitken Pool in the Lady Beaverbrook Gymnasium.

The building also includes a climbing wall, squash courts, two gyms, faculty offices, labs and classrooms, but Campbell's email focused on the loss of the pool and what it will mean.

"Despite our need to move ahead with our plans of decommissioning the Lady Beaverbrook Gym, we are committed to keeping our varsity swim team at UNB and we're investigating options as to where they will practise and compete after September 2018," he said.

Campbell said that over the past decade, the university has investigated options for constructing an aquatics centre and has pressed its case to the city, the Fredericton YMCA and both the provincial and federal governments. He said the university was hoping to find a solution to the city's aquatics needs but has been unsuccessful 

"The Sir Max Aitken Pool is past its useful life," he said in the email.

Years of consultation

George MacLean, UNB's vice-president academic, said the decision comes after years of groundwork and consultation with groups, including rock climbers, knowing any plan would affect several community groups, as well as the university.

He said some clubs will continue in other facilities such as the the Richard J. Currie Center and the new kinesiology building that is expected to be completed in the spring of 2018.

MacLean said the university has every intention of keeping the swim team and would like to see a future aquatic centre at the university.

"We are working with our varsity sports group, with our coaches and with the recruiting teams and we are seeking to have in place a plan on maintaining the varsity swim team at UNB," he said.

MacLean said the cost of the Lady Beaverbrook Gym  building is too much to maintain, averaging more than $400,000 a year to operate, with most of the money going to pool maintenance.

"It's a facility that has extended beyond its active life," he said. "We really did look at all the options available to us. This was not an easy decision."

Not expecting news

Jennifer Andrews was shocked when learning Wednesday that the pool would be closed.

"It's incredibly upsetting," said Andrews, a member of the Capital Region Aquatics Facility Team, a committee promoting the construction of a modern, multi-purpose aquatic centre for Fredericton residents. 

"It's health of citizens, it's health of children and keeping community members committed to living in Fredericton."

The message she's getting form the community is her health, her fitness, her ability to compete and be active and feel good about herself as an athlete, doesn't count, it doesn't matter.- Jennifer Andrews, synchronized swimmer's mother

Andrews said the pool wasn't in good shape and has needed repairs for a long time, but she applauded the university for keeping it functional for as long as it has.

Andrews said she's frustrated by the city's lack of action. She said a needs assessment should have been done a long time ago. 

An assessment was done in 2013, but the assumption at the time was that the pool would stay open indefinitely, she said.

She believes the city should have taken steps to deal with the need for a new aquatic centre.

"They've had a decade to plan this ... and very little has been done," she said. "Ultimately, I don't pay taxes to the university, I pay taxes to the city."

Other pools can't absorb loss

Andrews said the pool gets about 120,000 visits a year.  

"That's huge, it's an enormous group and there's no way the other pools in this city …  can take that on," she said. "There's nowhere to train, period."

The closure will be a considerable sacrifice for athletes and families involved in programs at the pool, said Andrews, whose 10-year-old daughter is a synchronized swimmer.

"The message she's getting form the community is her health, her fitness, her ability to compete and be active and feel good about herself as an athlete, doesn't count, it doesn't matter," Andrews said.

MacLean said those who use the pool will have to use other facilities within the capital city.

Affects more than swimmers

But it's not just the swimming community that's upset by the loss of the LBR gym.

Dominic Caron, an executive with UNB Rock and Ice, said he discovered the news of the closure in the email sent out by the university president and was shocked. 

"All of us, we were flabbergasted," said Caron, whose club has been part of the university community for more than 40 years and, with more than 100 members, is one of the largest on campus.

Caron said the club was assured in September by URec, a university organization that provides recreation services, that the Lady Beaverbrook Gym would not be decommissioned until a replacement plan was in place.

False sense of reassurance

"They said, 'Listen we're not going to have a campus without a pool. Don't worry about that … don't worry, we'll keep you in the loop,'" he said. "Boom, we get this email today."

Caron, who was frustrated by the president's email, said the club is now left scrambling and needs to decide whether to use facilities off campus for members. 

"The email from President Campbell makes absolutely no reference to any other sport that goes on at the LB gym, they just reference the pool," he said.

"Climbing is a sport that's exploding."

UNB tried to find solution

Campbell said other options were investigated in hopes of finding a solution that would not involve the city of Fredericton going without a competitive pool.

He said the university's application for strategic infrastructure funding included a commitment on the part of the university to decommission the Lady Beaverbrook Gym upon completion of the new kinesiology building, which happened in 2011 with the opening of the Richard J. Currie Centre.

"Our board of governors approved this stipulation after we explored various opportunities to repurpose the Lady Beaverbrook Gym," Campbell said. "At the time, our hope was that we would find a workable solution to address the closing of the Sir Max Aitken Pool and we have been working hard towards this end since."

In his email, Campbell said UNB's needs and the priorities of the provincial and federal governments were "aligned" for the kinesiology building project, but this hasn't happened with an aquatics facility.

"In keeping the door open for future opportunities, I have expressed to potential funding partners our interest of having a community aquatics facility on our Fredericton campus," he said.

The university will be commemorating the Lady Beaverbrook Gym in a number of ways over the next year, he said.