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Side Pool Project Update – 9/13

Side Pool Project Update – 9/13

As all of you are likely aware, it’s now September and our side pools are still closed due to the ongoing pump room construction project. We are very, very sorry about this – we can only imagine how frustrated the CHOA residents here are, especially with this record heat wave that just hit us this past Labor Day. This is not at all how this project was intended to go.

Owners who live near the pools or walk by them daily have likely noticed that no actual construction has taken place for quite a while now. This is because construction is mostly done – the hold up is and always has been on the admin side of things for most of the year, namely permits with the city of Concord. The contractor performing this work is the same as our current pool maintenance vendor, who had a great historical track record with us. This vendor has performed numerous pump room rehab projects like ours and we even had some board members check a new one out in person, with upgrades similar to the ones we would be doing. Unfortunately this contractor has struggled obtaining permits through the city, either due to missing information or details requested by the city or some other organizational/administrative error. One example of a significant cause for delay was a submission for the for the East pool that required an engineer to draw up plans for ventilation in the building. The contractor did not realize that the scope of changes they were proposing to the city required this, so we needed to find an engineer who could work with us. This engineer then had to study the proposed plans, come out for an inspection and measurements, and then create plans that satisfied the city. This alone caused about two months’ worth of delays. These plans are currently with the city and being reviewed. If approved, the next step is to finish up the pump room construction and then clean out the pool. We are told this part of the project will not take more than a week or so.

We have brought in a third party to assist who is reviewing the plans prior to resubmittal to the city. We have been working with the contractor and are in communication with them daily, asking for status updates and ETAs. As you can likely guess, we are very unhappy with our contractor’s continued struggles with obtaining permits for this project. Following completion of this project, the Board will perform a detailed investigation into exactly what went wrong and what can be done to avoid costly delays like this in the future. The Board will also be speaking with executives of the contractor regarding their current contract and the frankly unacceptable performance issues related to this project.

At this point, the east pool submittal is with the city and being reviewed. The west pool submittal is being finalized by the contractor and is about ready to send to our third party to look over. Once the city approves the permits, not much is left. The small bits of construction left will be finished, the components put in place and turned on, and the pool cleaned out. Unfortunately none of this can happen until the city approves our permits, which is why there has been very little change from the outside over the last few months.

Both side pools are having chlorine added at least three times a week. There is not much that can be done to prevent them from turning green without the pump and filter actively moving the water around and cleaning it. Vector Control from the county has been out a few times to look for mosquito activity and found none, so that is not currently an issue. There are no active health concerns related to the current condition of the pools.

We are very sorry for how badly this project has gone and will provide everyone with an update as soon as we have an ETA for at least one of the side pools. In the meantime, the Main Pool will remain open until further notice. We have no plan to even talk about closing the Main Pool until at least late fall, given how the pool situation has gone this year. We very much appreciate your patience and are doing all we can to get the contractor to finish up the job. We also apologize for not being able to give out more detailed updates explaining exactly why there is a delay. It has simply been a multitude of administrative issues on the contractor’s end, which have hopefully all been cleaned up with this most recent round of submittals.