A stop-work order has delayed efforts to get the Centennial Community Centre gymnasium into ship-shape for fitness classes but the city is confident it will be good to go by the end of the month.
As part of city council’s decision to decommission the Canada Games Pool, the city announced that equipment from the pool’s fitness area would be relocated to the gymnasium at Centennial Community Centre.
“The only advertised date that we had was March 28, so we are still hoping to have the new fitness centre open by that date,” said Corrinne Garrett, the city’s senior manager of recreation facilities and services. “We did hire some contractors for the site to reinforce the gymnasium floor.”
With hundreds of thousands of pounds of weight room equipment going into the space, Garrett said a structural engineering recommended the city put in some extra supports under the floor.
Garrett said the city hired a contractor to do that work, but it couldn’t begin until the city found suitable locations for the fitness programs that had been offered in the gymnasium. She said those programs all moved to their new locations on the weekend of Feb. 12 and 13, and the contractor came to the site on Feb. 14.
According to Garrett, a WorkSafeBC officer visited the site on Feb 15 and dealt with the contractor. Because they have “prime contractor status,” she said the contractor has total control over the site and city staff don’t have access to the site.
“The contractor is in control of the health and safety for that site,” she said. “So, the WorkSafe officer who came in dealt specifically with the contractor that we had hired to talk about mitigating some concerns that they had. Because the work was being done subsurface, in a crawl space basically, they were concerned about confined space. So the stop-work order was to the contractor in regards to mitigating factors regarding the confined space and doing work safely in that space. So, there was a procedural stoppage and we are just waiting for some paperwork to be filed.”
Garrett told the Record March 7 that the contractor has been gathering all the paperwork and assessments needed by WorkSafeBC, and construction at the site is anticipated to occur within the next day.
“It’s a four-day project. It’s not that long. … We are hoping for the work stoppage and the paperwork to be approved today or tomorrow, and then we are hoping the work will take about four days after that,” she said.
While work to reinforce the gymnasium floor has been on hold, other aspects of the project have been taking place. Last week, a contractor relocated all of the weight room equipment from the second level of Canada Games Pool to grade level.
“So now we just have to transfer basically from front door to front door, so the equipment has all been moved down. It was a large job, but that was all done last week,” she said. “We have contractors on standby, so as soon as the floor supports are put in – we are still planning to meet our deadline of March 28 for the fitness centre reopening.”
Fitness classes relocated
As part of its decision to relocate equipment from Canada Games Pool’s fitness area to the gym in Centennial Community Centre, the city had to find new homes for the Fitness New West and pickleball programs that had been offered in that space.
Effective Feb. 14, all evening group fitness classes and all weekend fitness classes were moved to Century House. Morning fitness classes (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) are being offered at Centennial Lodge in Queen’s Park, while morning fitness classes (Tuesday and Thursday) are taking place in the River Room at Centennial Community Centre.
Since the city announced it was relocating fitness and pickleball programs to different venues, some Fitness New West patrons have voiced concerns about the plan. Some community members signed a petition urging the city to allow Fitness New West to continue running in the gymnasium it has called home base for decades.
The Record has received several emails from attendees at Fitness New West classes who are not only unhappy with the decision to relocate their classes to other spaces, but are questioning the cost of moving and preparing the gymnasium to temporarily accommodate fitness equipment from Canada Games Pool.
Despite some people’s concerns about relocating group fitness classes, Garrett said the Fitness New West classes have been going well since moving to their new sites in mid-February.
“One of the sites is Centennial Lodge, which is in Queen’s Park. Classes at that site are sitting at about 73% sales capacity, so the classes are being very well attended. Those are our Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning classes,” she said. “Then, our evening classes at Century House pavilion are sitting at about 58% sales capacity, so again we are getting good attendance.”
Garrett said the city is looking at offering second classes or finding bigger spaces for some of the classes that have wait lists.
“We are working through some of those little growing pains that we have had the last couple of weeks, but ultimately the classes have been going great,” she said.
Garrett said the pickleball program relocated to Herbert Spencer.
“All of those participants are extremely happy with the offering, the space,” she said. “And we are seeing a pick-up in that program as well because they got an extra half-hour of program time as well.”
Garrett said the city welcomes feedback on its programs and services.
“We are telling, from the statistics, that the classes are running well in the sites that we have been able to relocate them to,” she said. “We can’t wait to welcome back our fitness leaders that haven’t been working because the fitness centre has been shut down. We are looking forward to welcoming them and we are looking forward to welcoming our fitness centre users from Canada Games Pool back to Centennial before the end of March. We are hoping to see everybody soon. “
Təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre, which will replace Canada Games Pool and Centennial Community Centre, is under construction and is expected to open in late 2023.
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