A key milestone in the community pool construction project is about to be met soon, project leaders told Piedmont city councilmembers in a pool update on Monday night.
“We expect to fill the pools in the last week of August,” Griffin Structures President John Hughes said. Between now and then, he said, workers are installing security systems, adding fencing, and tackling any work that might cause debris to fall into the pool water. It will take about two weeks after the water fills to finesse the chemistry of the pool water, he said, followed by a period of commissioning to make sure the all-electric system functions properly, a time he estimated at six to eight weeks.
“The interior of the building is virtually complete,” Hughes said.
Nevertheless, even as the contours of the new community pool are taking their final shape, the city and construction project leads have not provided an official opening date. The so-called commissioning period could take longer than expected, as happened with the city of Mountain View and their all-electric pool project that took three years to open to the public. ELS Architecture Chairman Clarence Mamuyac and Hughes — who designed and worked on that project — told councilmembers again that they are incorporating lessons learned from that experience into the Piedmont project to anticipate any issues.
Piedmont’s former deteriorating pool facility was closed in 2020. Residents passed Measure UU in November 2020 to fund a new all-electric pool and ground was broken in December 2022 on the site of the old pool. Originally slated to open in the summer of 2024, construction is now nearing its end stage after multiple delays that included the discovery of an old underground buried fuel tank, re-routing utilities, “weather”, and other issues. (The project has stood at “96% complete” since February, according to city staff report, a number that reflects a percentage of dollars spent, not time left in the schedule.)
Two members of the high school water polo community spoke during the public comment period. Parent Elizabeth Mitchell noted that PHS water polo season started this week and urged the city to do what it could to help “speed up construction” so that there could be at least a few home games this season. She said all water polo clinics planned for the summer had to be cancelled for lack of an available pool. [Editor’s note: In a social media post on Tuesday night, the PHS athletic director said the team is in desperate need of a practice pool for the start of the season due to the sudden closure of Laney College’s pool.]
Former PHS water polo coach and PHS teacher John Savage shared his frustration with the delays and cost overruns, saying the city should have taken steps sooner to move the project along.
“We have been asking throughout this whole process what we can do to speed things along — we are very aware of the delays and unhappiness with the increase in the budget,” said Mayor Betsy Smegal Andersen.
“We are doing everything we can to expedite,” said Public Works Director Daniel Gonzales. He said that now that unforeseen problems (such discovering that the water pipeline point of connection had to run through the area of the buried fuel tank) were resolved, work could proceed more quickly. “That’s reality — it’s frustrating and it frustrates us.”
Hughes noted that many of the construction complexities related to the site’s underground geography have been resolved, and that productivity on the ground was up. When unforeseen conditions such as the fuel tank discovery came up earlier in the project, Hughes said, workers were redeployed to work indoors which may have led to the perception that no work was being done on site. Now, he said, “there are very few things standing in the contractor’s way.”
Since the last Piedmont Community Pool project update in March 2025, the city outlined the following tasks that have been completed:
- Excavation of activity pool
- Building exterior finishes
- Completion of bioswale area
- Completion of all ceilings
- Sealing, carpeting and tiling of all floors
- Completion of pool concrete apron
- Completion of bleachers
- Cupa Clad of all facades
- Installation of bathroom fixtures, partitions and lockers
- Installation of roof terrace pavers
In the month of August, the following tasks are anticipated to be underway:
- Complete offsite roadway, sidewalk and curb and gutter
- Complete landscaping
- Grout and fill competition and activity pools
The Piedmont Beautification Foundation donated over $200,000 for landscaping in 2023.
Project delays result in additional expenses
Both Griffin Structures and ELS billed the city for additional hours that they say were incurred by construction delays. “This still falls within our total project budget,” said Public Works Director Daniel Gonzales. Gonzales said the city is re-allocating some some hard cost budget funds to soft costs to cover this new expense.
After hearing explanations from Mamuyac and Hughes, councilmembers approved a sixth amendment to the city’s agreement with Griffin Structures for additional services at an amount not to exceed $100,000, and approved an amended overall budget for this agreement of $1,812,225. Hughes said the amount requested was for additional testing and inspection support services (i.e., inspecting concrete and rebar) that are required to achieve project completion with the extended construction schedule. “I’m 99 percent sure that GeoCon will not need any additional testing,” Hughes said, and Griffin may not even need to use the full $100,000.
The Council also approved a fourth amendment to the city’s agreement with ELS Architecture for additional design services at an amount not to exceed $229,020, and approve an amended overall budget for this agreement of $3,019,658. Mamuyac said his firm has had to spend additional time supporting the general contractor and construction team to troubleshoot the sequence of work since the beginning of the year but that this work should taper off as the project concludes. “You asked me if this is it — I don’t know,” he said, citing previous delays. “Based on what I know, we can see it being completed [in the closeout phase] soon.”
The city says approximately 86.5% of authorized contingency funds have been used as part of approved change order requests to address various unforeseen conditions, as well as clarification of design issues. The project remains within the July 2024 revised budget of $34,900,000.