Iqaluit staff choose Arnaitok lot for new pool

City staff have a preferred option for the site of Iqaluit’s proposed new swimming pool.

Amy Elgersma, the city’s recreation director, said Jan. 27 that the vacant lot next door to the Arnaitok complex is big enough to accommodate a new aquatics centre.

“We don’t have to tear something down or phase something out” to build a new pool, she said.

A replacement for the cramped and aging pool at Astro Hill is now the city’s top infrastructure priority, because the current lease there is set to expire in March 2013.

The current pool was built in the early 1970s to serve a population of 900 people.

Elgersma said it now costs the city $19,000 per month to lease and heat the old pool. Water treatment and drainage systems also aren’t up to standard.

It has a maximum capacity of only 35 people — far too small to handle today’s demand. And recreation officials say kids routinely line up for an hour just to get in.

“It really needs to be replaced,” Elgersma said. “The current pool has served three generations.”

It’s still not clear how much a replacement swimming pool will cost the city. A feasibility study is still in the works and has to be approved by council before anything gets built, Elgersma said.

Iqaluit will likely also anxiously await both the federal and territorial budgets, which will come down some time over the next two months.

Money is tight for both levels of government and that’s expected to reduce the amount of money available for new infrastructure for Nunavut municipalities.

But Elgersma said those governments should consider the benefits of recreation facilities for kids who need ways to get exercise during the long Nunavut winters.

“We hope [governments] will understand the need for recreation infrastructure in the North,” she said.

The city is still in the midst of compiling feasibility studies for three other pieces of infrastructure: a recreation centre, new city hall and new fire hall.

In December, the city unveiled preliminary plans for the facilities. Elgersma said a new ice surface would likely be located at an expanded Arctic Winter Games arena complex and other recreation facilities at a replacement for the aging and dilapidated Arnaitok complex.

Elgersma said arena facilities would probably be consolidated at the AWG, while others, like a proposed fieldhouse, running track and fitness centre would go downtown.