Piedmont City Councilmembers had a lot of questions for pool construction project managers on Monday night, even as they approved an additional $2.8 million in funding to complete the new community pool at their Dec. 2 meeting. The funds will come primarily from the city’s Facilities Capital Fund, the city said. This action brings the total project cost to $34.9 million, an increase from the original project budget of $28.9 million.
Although the pool project is a little more than 80% complete, project managers currently set the estimate for construction completion to sometime in spring 2025. Rain could affect the timeline, they said.
The project budget encompasses all costs related to development of the new pool, including construction, design, engineering, and site improvements surrounding the facility. Since construction started in early 2023, the project has incurred significant new costs due to:
- project delays related to weather, utilities (PG&E), and the discovery of two buried fuel tanks on the construction site
- additional costs associated with the complexity of pool electrification
- soil disposal, due to the presence of naturally occurring arsenic in the soil composition
Councilmembers said they were frustrated with the increasing costs and shifting timeline. “This is a really significant ask of us tonight,” said Councilmember Betsy Anderson. “How sure are we that this allocation will be enough to get us to opening day?”
“Every month it feels like the numbers go up,” said Mayor Jen Cavenaugh.
“We have the same questions,” said Public Works Director Daniel Gonzalez, who said the city was digging into the change orders and the validity of the new costs. Gonzalez said the project was a little over 80% complete but only one pool has been constructed so far and the other still awaited excavating.
Representatives from Griffin Structures said delays related to PGE’s transformer installation set the timeline back by months but that work on the site was continuing now. Project manager George Sanen said that there is only one remaining issue with PGE — a newly discovered existing gas line on Magnolia Avenue.
The top priority now, said Sanen, is the excavating and soil disposal of the second pool. He said they were aiming to complete this work by mid-January. In the meantime, he said construction crews were working on enclosing the complex building, and that internal work has not been delayed.
Additional costs have also come from expanding the project scope to include already-planned projects adjacent to the pool site — what Councilmember Betsy Anderson referred to as “while you’re at its” — that include waterproofing of the Recreation Department building and the full-width repaving of Magnolia Avenue. By wrapping this work into the pool construction contract, the city said it was able to realize economies of scale and accomplish long-term cost savings.
“Our priority is to finish this project and get our community in the water,” said City Administrator Rosanna Bayon Moore. “We are bringing all possible resources to bear to complete construction and open the pool as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Piedmont’s new community pool is primarily funded by Measure UU, a $19.5 million construction bond approved by voters in November 2020. Bond proceeds and interest from Measure UU have provided $25.2 million for the pool project.
To fund the remainder of the project, the City brought together a total of nine funding sources, including community donations from a Piedmont Recreational Facilities Organization (PRFO) fundraising campaign and the Piedmont Beautification Foundation, a long-term no-interest loan from AVA Community Energy, and state grant funds that support clean energy projects.
The city is pursuing additional funding sources, including Inflation Reduction Act credits currently estimated at $180,000 and a $300,000 reimbursement for costs associated with removing the buried fuel tanks and remediating contaminated soil through the State of California’s Removing or Upgrading Underground Storage Tanks (RUST) Program.
Learning from Mountain View pool project setbacks
A combination of contractor inexperience and manufacturer issues led to Mountain View delays, said ELS President Clarence Mamuyac. That pool was expected to open in July 2024, but issues came to light during the commissioning phase when testing the electrical systems, specifically around the sequencing of the chiller pumps. Mamuyac said the project team was learning from Mountain View’s experience to make sure Piedmont’s project did not suffer the same setbacks. That pool has been operational since October, said Mamuyac, but the city of Mountain View has decided to officially open in January 2025.
“We’re confident we’ve learned from the Mountain View project,” said Griffin executive John Hughes. He said that team has come to the Piedmont site to consult. While the two projects are about 90 percent similar, Sanen said, there are some differences that they are focusing on.