Five years of painstaking renovation. Countless delays. A $122m bill for the taxpayer.
Finally, the North Sydney Olympic Pool has reopened — and it’s beguiling.
The beloved facility, where swimming greats like Dawn Fraser and Shane Gould broke world records, reopened to much fanfare on Friday.
The pool shut in 2021 for a major refurb.
News.com.au visited during the grand reopening and was stunned by what it found.
The revamped site has a plush, new spa, sauna and steam room, an unashamedly modern gym with all the gadgets you can imagine, group fitness studios, and a sundeck with unforgettable views of Sydney Harbour, as well as a gelato bar.
But the true beauty lay outside in the form of an historic 50-metre outdoor heated swimming pool that looks directly at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s here that some 86 swimming world records were smashed.
The pool is surrounded by heritage Art Deco walls with restored neoclassic stucco motifs. Original 1930s bricks were salvaged and reused wherever possible, or they replaced by hand-painted ones to match the original 1930s brickwork, according to North Sydney Council.
There are brass frogs throughout the facility in ode to the original frog motifs on the Eastern Stair Tower, terracotta tiling in the outdoor pool area and a children’s pool area fit for fun summer days.
The outdoor pool is filled with treated saltwater drawn from Sydney Harbour.
North Sydney Council was handed the keys to the pool by developer Icon in May 22 and worked to get it operational.
The facility is free of charge throughout the opening weekend, from August 7-9, with no ticket required.
After that, casual visits are expected to cost $11, while passes for multiple entries and gym memberships will set you back $37 a week.
he gates opened at 2.30pm on Friday, giving the public its first access to the redeveloped site after a project that grew into one of Sydney’s most debated council builds.
But has the cost and time really been worth it?
‘I feel for the residents’
Phil Brown, 41, said he couldn’t justify spending $122m on “just a swimming pool.”
“Great views, though. But, I feel for the residents, if they’re having to pay for that,” he told news.com.au.
“If that’s what it’s mostly about — the vantage point and the view — then you can enjoy the views without being in the pool.”
Friends Cathy Cooper, 68, and Cheryl Ryan, 67, travelled in from Blacktown but had to turn back after realising the pool didn’t open until later in the afternoon.
Lynette and Dennis Lockwood came in from nearby Epping to see the pool after hearing about it opening on the news.
“It looks very nice but I’m happy I’m not a ratepayer paying for it,” Mr Lockwood, 86, quipped.
“Our son lives in the area and he’s a ratepayer and I don’t think he’s very happy with the increase in the rates. I don’t think he’ll use it very often. But, if you’re going to use it, great. If you’re a ratepayer that doesn’t use it, you’re not going to be happy.”
Ms Lockwood said she remembers using the pool during swimming carnivals at school.
“It’s an icon and I think it’s wonderful they’ve kept it but it’s cost an awful lot of money and I appreciate how people feel.”
Amanda Ngai, 35, trekked over an hour away to use the pool. She told news.com.au she was so excited, she came dressed in her bathers.
“Everytime I use the train, I can see the pool. It’s so exciting to see it. Anyway, today, I have a chance to enter,” she said.
Marie Mungoven, 33, said the pool would be good for tourism and the community and can’t wait to take her parents to visit.
She also said the cost was “understandable”.
“A lot of people in the area would attest to that. A lot of people are waiting for it as well. I can say being a local and walking past it all the time, I’m always wondering when the open date would come. It’s here and I think it’s going to be very good,” she said.
Cost blow-out and the ‘S*** sandwich’
Reburbishing the iconic pool hasn’t come without controversy.
The project also became part of a wider debate about whether local councils should take on major infrastructure projects, as ageing pools across Sydney face costly upgrades.
In February last year, North Sydney councillors voted 7 to 3 to hike rates by 87per cent over two years.
Under the so-called special rate variation (SRV), North Sydney residents will be hit with a 45 per cent increase in 2025-26 and 29 per cent in 2026-27. The minimum residential rate, currently paid by 72 per cent of residents, will rise from $715 per quarter to $1200 in 2025-26 and minimum business rate from $715 to $1400.
The council said it was left with no choice after projected cost from the botched redevelopment blew out from around $30 million to a total estimate of $122 million, leaving it with $61 million in external debt and drained internal infrastructure reserves of another $30 million.
Non-rates revenue such as parking fell by another $9.9 million as a result of Covid, leaving council facing a “liquidity crisis” and the “need for the rate rise to secure financial sustainability for the next generation,” the Mayor said.
North Sydney Council was handed the keys to the pool by developer Icon in May 22. It then pressed ahedad with the painstaking restoration of the facitlity’s grant art deco wall.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the iconic wall has suffered a long decline thanks to decades of exposure to seawater, dirty harbour air and associated renovation works.
The pool opened on 4 April 1936 and is a Heritage Listed site. It’s also the only surviving example in Australia of a harbour-side Olympic Pool in the neo-classical style characteristic of the 1930s, according to North Sydney Council.
It held the fourth British Empire Games in February 1938 – now known as the Commonwealth Games – and was the site of 86 world records being broken, including Shane Gould’s famous 100m Freestyle swim that broke Dawn Fraser’s long-standing World Record in January 1972.
Other famous Olympians who competed, trained or swam in the pool include Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose, Frank O’Neill, Michelle Ford, Jon and Isla Konrads and Lorraine Crapp.
Read related topics:Sydney