Residents in Richmond will have to wait as long as another year before they can use the massive aquatic centre at the newly-built Minoru Centre for Active Living.

The municipal government says the technical investigation into the failure of one of the concrete bases of the six swimming pools has reached completion.

Now that the city, insurers, and contractors know the extent of the issues, the necessary repairs on a lap pool can begin, with Omicron Construction Ltd. hired to complete the work. The parties are in the process of creating an expedited construction schedule for the repairs, with a full opening now slated for sometime in Fall 2020.

The city says the full cost of the repairs are fully covered at no cost to taxpayers, as the investigation report deemed the failure was caused by “construction workmanship deficiencies.”

The problems were first identified during commissioning work, about a year ago, when the pools were being filled with water.

A full opening of the $80-million recreational and community facility was originally scheduled for March 2019, but due to the issues only the two-storey seniors centre and events centre opened in time.

The 8,500-sq-ft fitness centre portion of the facility, overlooking the aquatic centre, is now slated to open in January 2020.

The 110,000-sq-ft facility is located at Minoru Park, just west of CF Richmond Centre shopping mall. It was constructed to replace two ageing facilities at the park — the existing seniors centre at Minoru Place Activity Centre and Minoru Aquatic Centre, which will remain open until the new swimming facilities are ready for the public.

The aquatic centre component of the new facility includes two 25-metre length swimming lap pools — one eight-lane tank and one six-lane tank — and a large leisure pool with a large lazy river run, water sprays, and play features.

A wellness area will boast Canada’s two largest hot tubs, a cold plunge pool, a steam room, and saunas.

The project was designed by HCMA Architecture + Design, and the general construction contractor was Stuart Olson.