City administration has confirmed a replacement aquatic centre has disappeared from Lloydminster’s 10 year capital plan. The project appeared in earlier long range budgets but no longer appears anywhere in the 2026 capital forecast.
The clarification followed a series of questions from Councillor Michael Diachuk during this year’s budget review.
“In what year will the study for the new pool be,” asked Diachuk. “You mentioned one point five million. You said 2030?”
“Yes, in 2030,” said administration.
Diachuk then pressed for a realistic construction timeline.
“What is the realistic time frame between the study and construction,” asked Diachuk. “Three years? Four years? Five years?”
“2030 is a year where we maybe start planning,” said administration. “But there are multiple steps that go into planning depending on a variety of factors. One being whether we approach it as a renovation and expansion versus a new build.”
Those steps include land selection, potential land purchase, community consultation and early planning work.
“We are just identifying 2030 as the year to start budgeting for some of those initiatives that would likely carry for a few years,” said administration. “Depending on funding, city reserves and grant opportunities, the builds would be dependent on those factors.”
Administration then confirmed the major shift. The full replacement aquatic centre was removed from the city’s long range plan.
“We need some direction from council on which way we want to go,” said administration. “We did not want to throw two hundred million in here and know that council only wants to do a renovation.”
“It was in this 10 year capital plan at one point, and we took it out just for that reason,” said administration. “We want to have some discussions.”
Diachuk noted the need for a clear decision.
“So within the next year, we are going to have some discussions around option A or B or existing or new or partnerships,” asked Diachuk.
“We have some rough idea numbers based on our last feasibility study,” said administration. “We would have to update the numbers a little bit, but we have a general idea of what that might look like and what other municipalities are doing.”
With no construction dollars listed and only a design study scheduled for 2030, Lloydminster remains years away from deciding whether it will renovate the Bioclean Aquatic Centre or build a new facility.
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Of course there is no pool money.. we need to keep building hockey rinks, and throwing money at renovating the old outdated ones. As a parent whose kids have been involved in water sports for years,it’s very frustrating ! We don’t necessarily need a new pool but expanding our current one to include bleacher seating and a dive tank could increase revenue. More patrons could be accessing the facility concurrently if there was a one more space. A dive tank could mean the introduction of a dive club, and water polo team as well as being used for swimming lessons and even leisure swim and with a little decent seating, mabe we could even hold some bigger swim meets and competitions, to bring more revenue into the community.It’s WAY past time to consider expansion