N.S. municipality considering new venue as Acadia University pool closes

The 60-year-old pool at Acadia University will close on June 15.

The 60-year-old pool at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., will officially close on June 15.

“It means that we won’t have a local facility in town where it’s used by a lot of our community members and the Acadia students, yeah, it’ll be a loss for sure,” says Wolfville Mayor Jodi MacKay.

Citing annual deficits and millions in maintenance costs, the university announced in February it planned to close the facility. The municipality has been considering a new venue for years.

“For the last four years we have been doing feasibility studies with our partners at the County of Kings in Kentville and we’re looking to build a recreation facility, which won’t be located in Wolfville but a partnership together,” MacKay says.

That study is recommending a 25-metre pool. Bette El-Hawary, the head of Swim Nova Scotia, is encouraging the municipality to think bigger, considering the new complex would be used by hundreds of swimmers in local clubs, swim teams and Acadia’s varsity team.

“We would love to see an eight lane, 50-metre pool plus a leisure pool available to the community,” El-Hawary says.

El-Hawary confirms her organization is hoping to work with Acadia to keep the pool open for as long as possible, both for the community and the student athletes who chose to swim for the school.

“We have a lot of swimmers that are in a bit of a predicament in terms of what they’re going to do because it’s not so easy to change. universities partway through your studies,” El-Hawary says.

The County of Kings is checking on a piece of land right now that, if purchased, the feasibility study will be put into action.

Still, a new facility is years away from opening to the public.

“There are other facilities close by us too, so we have Windsor has an outdoor pool. Kentville will have their outdoor pool up and running, Waterville, Greenwood and Kings Edgehill has opened their doors, and the Old Orchard Inn has also offered up to have discussions with us to see if we can put some recreational programming up there as well,” MacKay says.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page