Swim meet: Municipalities, YMCA come together on new Corner Brook pool
It may be a slow forward crawl, but it looks like there's finally some momentum to go ahead with planning for a new pool for the Corner Brook area.
Three municipalities and the YMCA have come together to apply to the provincial government for money for a feasibility study.
"There is general consensus that regional is the way to go," said Christine Young, CEO of the YMCA of Western Newfoundland.
"It would be incredibly burdensome, I believe, on the residents of Corner Brook alone, when we're serving a much broader region."
Pooling their resources
The YMCA will contribute $10,000 toward a feasibility study, with Corner Brook, Massey Drive and Mount Moriah picking up the rest of the municipal share. The study is anticipated to cost in the range of $110,000 in total.
"The feasibility study is the very, very important first step," Young told the CBC Corner Brook Morning Show.
"You have to have a plan. You can't just ask somebody to give millions of dollars to build a pool, and not have something substantial to back that up."
Closure of pool led YMCA to dive in
The YMCA of Western Newfoundland has been working on the idea of a regional pool since it first came up as an issue in April 2016, when one of the city's two pools shut down.
That pool was located at Grenfell Campus and was in need in of repairs, which Memorial University said were too costly to undertake.
That left just the older pool at the Arts and Culture Centre to serve all users, including the local Corner Brook Rapids swim club, the Corner Brook Reflections synchronized swim team, people who want to take lessons, and recreational swimmers.
Young says the feasibility study should provide insight on how best to move ahead.
"We have to build a facility that is not going to be an incredible drain on taxpayers," she said.
Politicians wade in
Recently, MHA and cabinet minister Gerry Byrne outlined a possible way forward, with a new pot of federal funding made available for arts and recreation infrastructure, as well as a willingness by the provincial government to consider a request for capital funding.
Mayor Charles Pender confirmed the city has now asked for money to do a feasibility study, and the request was submitted last week under the city's multi-year capital plan.
He says the city has letters of support from the towns of Massey Drive and Mount Moriah, which will contribute to the cost of the feasibility study. But Pender says this does not mean any of the municipalities are obligated beyond getting a feasibility study done.
Pender says he's still hoping to get the support of other towns in the region, and the cty plans to host a meeting in the near future with that in mind.
Sink or swim
As for the YMCA, Young says the need for a new pool is potentially an opportunity to partner in a municipally owned, YMCA-operated facility.
"We've got a broad range of programming that we would wrap around an aquatics facility that would support that," said Young.
"There may be a need for subsidy, but the goal is that the subsidy would be minimal."
