Weather, soil conditions delay Moncton's Centennial Beach pool

Completion of Moncton's new Centennial Beach pool is more than a month behind schedule because of weather and site issues.

The $5.45-million project began last year off St. George Boulevard and was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of May. In May, city staff suggested it would open in mid-July.

Staff declined last week to provide a new timeline for its opening or say whether it remains on budget.

Marco Maritimes Ltd. is the contractor building the new pool, one of two outdoor pools under construction in Moncton. The east end pool, with Avondale Construction as the contractor, is expected to be finished later this month. 

The city indicated in May that the Centennial Beach pool surface coating would be completed within a few weeks, though it wasn't finished last week. Landscaping, sidewalks, driveways and other work also appeared to still be in progress.

Two days after CBC News requested an interview for an update on timelines and the pool's budget, the city announced it would hold a media tour of the site in the future and would answer questions then.

"This project is very near completion and everyone has their head down working as quickly as possible," Isabelle LeBlanc, Moncton's director of communications, said in an email. 

"With the nice weather, we hope that we'll have some great news very soon."

The new pool replaces the pool in Centennial Park constructed in 1984 and decommissioned in 2018. It saw about 25,000 visits per summer. 

The new pool should accommodate about 600 bathers at once. It's located closer to Rotary Lodge than the old pool on a site that required cutting hundreds of trees in the park. 

"This site has presented some challenges with respect to poor soil conditions and the early winter conditions that have impacted project contingencies and timeframe," LeBlanc said in May. "It also has a considerable amount of landscaping,  which will be weather dependent and may impact opening dates.

LeBlanc said the project has been kept close to budget, but the city will have final numbers until next month. 

City council awarded the $5,284,250 tender for the project in June 2018 with a contingency fund of $200,000. A staff report says the target date to complete the pool, along with landscaping work and fixing any deficiencies, "is no later than May 31, 2019."

Coun. Charles Léger, who represents the area, said there have been "many challenges" because of the number of rainy days during construction.

"The contractor is working very hard to complete the work as soon as possible," he said in an email.

Coun. Shawn Crossman recently toured the nearly finished east end pool, which he said is expected to open in the third week of July. He said the contractor has done everything possible to keep the project on schedule despite bad weather. 

The pool replaces one that closed in 2013 beside the Moncton East Youth Centre on Fergus Street.

But Crossman said the expectation is for an early to mid-August opening for Centennial Beach. He said he's not sure where the budget stands for that pool. 

Crossman said lifeguard staff for both pools will be trained at the east end pool. The staff will remain there until Centennial Beach is open when the staff will be split between both sites.