The maintenance issue which caused the Crystal Pool Recreation Centre to shut down its pool area operations on November 12th will now force the facility to be closed until December 30th.
The mechanical issue which prompted the temporary closure initially was a large valve with the filtration system failing.
Now, the City is still waiting on parts for the over 50-year-old pool system.
“Despite our efforts to expedite repairs, the issue is not yet resolved,” said the City of Victoria via Crystal Pools’ website.
“Given the circumstances, we have decided to begin our annual maintenance shutdown one week earlier than originally planned.”
The annual maintenance period takes place every year and usually begins sometime between November and December. This is done to clean the pool and do regular maintenance on all its systems.
As of Saturday, November 23rd, all drop-in activities, recreation and pool programs at Crystal Pool have been suspended until December 30th.
Crystal Pool says that pro-rated refunds for registered programs will be issued and the programs running at off-site locations are not affected.
Of note, during the pool’s closure, memberships to Crystal Pool will be accepted at all partner facilities, including Oak Bay, Saanich, Esquimalt, West Shore, SEAPARC and Panorama recreation centres, as well as the downtown YMCA.
The front desk will remain open for program and membership registrations in the new year from Monday to Friday, except for December 6th, 9th and between December 22nd and 29th.
In the new year, Victorians will be taking part in a referendum to decide whether they want the City of Victoria to take on additional debt in order to replace the aging facility and where they would like the new pool to be situated within Central Park.
Read more about the Crystal Pool replacement project here, or via the pool’s website.
