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Casey Aquatic & Recreation Centre

A new era in partnerships

As Victoria’s fastest growing municipality, the City of Casey is proving that forming strategic alliances and carving successful partnerships with all stakeholders is the best way to deliver community facilities at the best price, in the quickest time and to the highest quality.

Officially opened by Mayor Mick Morland on Sunday 23 September 2001, the Aquatic & Recreation Centre (ARC) was completed in just 18 months.

Features include the following.

• Eight-lane 50-metre pool
• Wave pool, with ‘beach’ entry
• Learn-to-swim pool
• Toddlers’ pool, with snorkel trail and giant frog slide
• Spa, sauna and steam rooms
• Sports medicine clinic for physiotherapy
• Upper level gymnasium with a range of equipment and activities, weights training room, multi purpose and aerobics room
• Creche, featuring outdoor play area with playground

It is an outstanding example of the results and community benefit that can derive from successful partnerships with other spheres of government and the private sector.

The $17.4 million Casey ARC is the City’s largest and most exciting capital works project ever undertaken. Council provided $12.4 million to build the centre and the State Government contributed $5 million.

Council staff worked closely with the State Government Department of Sport and Recreation from the initial approval of funding through to the project’s completion. Their staff were involved in the appointment of the facility’s manager, the YMCA, and Council is providing ongoing advice to the Department on how Casey has implemented the processes of development, delivery and operation of the centre, which have generated much interest in the wider aquatic and leisure industry.

Casey’s productive partnership with project managers Paul Steinfort & Associates, led to pioneering the use of an innovative construction management technique for large municipal facilities. This process, known as novation, allowed the project to be fast tracked.

Under this approach, construction commenced with only minimal but essential design information available, and as the project evolved, the knowledge and skills of the construction team, including Council staff and contractors, fed into the process to determine the final product. Quite simply, this process is more cost effective and means the product can be delivered to the end user more quickly.

Council also worked closely with builders Fletcher Construction Australia Ltd to ensure the development of the community facility could be witnessed by the community.

Photos of every development milestone were put on to Council’s website so people could ‘virtually’ be on the building site, seeing the construction take place before their eyes! Council also wanted to ensure the new centre would boast the most up to date environmental features.

One of the Centre’s most interesting environmental features is that the water in the pools is purified by ultra violet radiation to reduce chlorine levels and there is significant recycling of water on to adjoining parkland. Other environmentally efficient design features include the following.

• Natural ventilation operated via automatic sensors to ensure energy required to cool the facility is reduced to a minimum.
• The usage of natural light will reduce the requirement for electric lighting during daylight hours.
• The pool water will be cleaned using Ultra Fine Filtration and Ultra Violet Radiation. These methods will ensure maximum water quality with minimum chlorine usage.
• A fully integrated electronic building management system will ensure that all components of the centre are operating at maximum efficiency.
• Heat generated in cooling the facility will be captured and used to heat the pool water.
• The pool structure has been designed to utilise a minimum amount of steel. This design, which does not compromise structural strength, ensures that the facility has lower levels of embodied energy.
• Backwash water is recycled into the sprinkler and irrigation system.
• The roof design captures rainwater run off for usage in the neighbouring lake.

The project’s success was highlighted at the community opening when more than 5,000 residents walked through the doors just to get a sneak preview of their new community facility. The first day of operation saw nearly 3,000 people use the centre.

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