Carleton Place advances plans for $25M aquatic and recreation centre

Proposed aquatic and recreation centre moves to procurement and public consultation

At Carleton Place’s aging pool, it’s less a question of whether it will fail than when, so the town is moving a $25-million replacement concept forward.

Councillors supported advancing procurement and public consultation for a stand-alone aquatic and recreation centre on the town-owned Muturra lands. The proposal includes a 10-lane, 25-metre lap pool, a 20-metre leisure pool, a therapeutic pool, a double gymnasium, six pickleball courts, a 130-metre elevated walking track and two multipurpose rooms.

The decision is not final construction approval. Property and Project Manager Ross Rankin said procurement would test the market, provide Carleton Place council with firmer pricing and allow another review before the town commits significant funding.

The urgency comes from the 45-year-old Carleton Place Aquatic Centre, which staff say has entered an “accelerated deterioration phase.” Director of Community Services Diane Knight told council the town has invested $577,197 in the facility over the past four years, including about $22,000 in unplanned work.

“The town is operating in a high-risk scenario where the pool may need to be partially or fully closed at any time due to a failure,” Knight said.

A partial rehabilitation is estimated to cost $4 million to $6 million and could close the pool for 12 to 14 months. Even then, risks would remain around underground infrastructure, the pool basin, soil conditions and other aging systems. A major failure could leave the community without a pool for 18 months or longer.

Staff recommend keeping the pool open through reactive repairs rather than undertaking a major rehabilitation. Any repair exceeding $10,000 would return to council.

The new centre is intended to serve more than swimmers. Rankin said its pools, gymnasium, walking track and multipurpose rooms would expand programming, meet regional demand and create an accessible community hub.

Coun. Linda Seccaspina said accessibility must be incorporated from the start, including elevator access to the elevated walking track for seniors and residents with mobility challenges.

The preferred concept uses prefabricated construction, which Rankin said could potentially be completed in 12 to 18 months, compared with three to five years for a conventional brick-and-mortar build.

Deputy Mayor Andrew Tennant said council and staff have spent months consulting aquatic-facility specialists.

“I know it’s $25 million, but compared to the other ways to do this, it’s incredibly reasonable,” he said. “We’ve done our homework.”

Coun. Dena Comley, a member of the working group, described the existing centre as “kind of a ticking time bomb” and said the challenge will be bridging the gap between the old pool and its replacement.

Staff recommend a competitive design-build procurement process rather than hiring a designer and construction company under separate contracts.

The town would set out its requirements, including the pools, gymnasium, walking track, accessibility standards and performance expectations. Teams of builders, architects, engineers and aquatic specialists would submit proposals outlining what they could build, the cost and the timeline.

Staff also considered a non-competitive process and a traditional design-bid-build approach. The non-competitive option could move faster, but staff rejected it because it would not meet the town’s procurement bylaw and could raise concerns about transparency and value for taxpayers.

A traditional design-bid-build approach would give the town more control over detailed plans, but staff said it could take three to five years and leave the municipality carrying more risk if design gaps, construction problems or market changes caused delays or cost overruns.

Design-build places the designer and builder under one contract, creating a single point of responsibility. Staff say it could provide earlier cost certainty, faster construction and fewer change orders, particularly where filtration, mechanical, structural and electrical systems must be closely co-ordinated.

The trade-off is less council and public control over some design details after the contract is awarded. Staff say that can be managed through clear specifications, design-review checkpoints and early consultation.

The financial deep end remains the biggest question. The $25-million figure is a high-level estimate, not a class-level construction estimate, and staff said a contingency of up to 50 per cent should be considered until competitive proposals provide greater certainty.

Without grants or other outside funding, the project could mean roughly a six per cent municipal tax-rate increase. The town is considering strategic reserves and Housing Accelerator Fund money, while councillors urged staff to pursue grants, sponsorships and naming-rights agreements.

Residents will be consulted through open houses, focus groups and an online survey. Councillors asked that the working group review the questions before they are released.

Tennant stressed that procurement and consultation are checkpoints, not an automatic path to construction.

“If we go to public consultation and we find that the whole town doesn’t want to build a pool, we’ll get that answer,” he said.

For now, the town plans to keep the old pool running, determine what a replacement would truly cost and ask residents how ambitious—and how affordable—Carleton Place’s next recreation chapter should be.

CORRECTION (July 15, 2026): An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the age of the Carleton Place Aquatic Centre. The facility is 45 years old, not 51. The article has been updated.

CLARIFICATION (July 16, 2026): The Muturra Lands are town-owned lands located south of Highway 7 and east of Highway 15, between McNeely Avenue and Highway 15, fronting on the new Captain A. Roy Brown Boulevard currently under construction.

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