The new Parramatta Aquatic Centre will open next week.Credit: Peter Bennetts, courtesy of Grimshaw and Andrew Burges Architects
Peter Hession was the last swimmer out of the water before the Parramatta War Memorial Swimming Centre was bulldozed for a sports stadium in 2017. More than six years later, he was among the first off the blocks in the outdoor pool at the long-awaited Parramatta Aquatic Centre.
“We’re back home,” said Hession, who has been a member of the Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club for 56 years. His wife and fellow member, Sandra Hession, said it was emotional for the group to return to the heart of Parramatta for a trial swim in the pool before its opening next Monday.
“The new pool’s obviously different but, like anything, you’ve got to go with the times,” she said.
When the turnstiles open at Parramatta’s newly completed $88.6 million aquatic centre, hundreds of thousands of residents in the fast-growing epicentre of western Sydney will have endured 2367 days without a public swimming pool after a drawn-out battle over who would fund a new one.
Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club members Sandra and Peter Hession are looking forward to weekend swims at the new Parramatta Aquatic Centre (PAC).Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Construction began in 2021, nearly four years after the former Coalition state government incensed locals with its decision to raze the old pool to make way for construction of its $360 million Western Sydney Stadium. The government stared down a campaign to keep the original pool, and a drawn-out stoush ensued with the City of Parramatta over who would pay for its replacement. It finally agreed to split the cost of the pool, then estimated at $77 million, with the council in 2019.
Parramatta Lord Mayor Sameer Pandey said the wait had been hard for the community. He hoped the pool, a stone’s throw from the city centre, would be a gathering place for generations.
“The journey to get here has taken time. But I’m very certain that when people come into this facility, they will say it was worth the wait,” Pandey said.
If the projected visitor numbers are anything to go by, his predictions should prove correct.
The old pool, which opened in 1959, attracted about 110,000 visitors each year; the aquatic centre is eventually expected to draw one million. Owing to Sydney’s deep nostalgia for its suburban pools, the complex faces a dual challenge: continuing the legacy of the demolished pool while establishing a modern swimming and fitness complex to service the community for decades.
Sienna Yip, 9, trials the children’s splash play area at the aquatic centre.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club president Peter Ayoub said members were looking forward to a new era.“The Parramatta community deserves this state-of-the-art pool,” he said.
Built into the slope of Parramatta Park, the pool’s circular “ring” design aims to blend into the Mays Hill precinct and preserve historic views towards the World Heritage-listed Old Government House.
The structure, designed by Grimshaw Architects, Andrew Burges Architects and McGregor Coxall, and built by construction company Lipman, covers 40,000 square metres. It features a 50-metre outdoor pool encircled by indoor facilities including a 25-metre recreational pool, learn-to-swim pool for children and adults, a splash play area, spa, gym and exercise rooms.
Joint design director Andrew Burges said the central challenge was reconciling the vast building footprint required while meeting the council’s desire for the structure to largely disappear into the parkland. Native timbers and concrete were used to “really move away from that white sports architecture to something that feels like it’s part of the landscape”.
The sunken pool complex was designed to blend into the surrounding Mays Hill precinct.Credit: Peter Bennetts, courtesy of Grimshaw and Andrew Bur
Burges said the building incorporated multiple areas for passive recreation to create a “much more expanded idea of what a community facility could be”, particularly given many Parramatta residents lived in apartments. As well as the pools, there were outdoor seats and bleachers to laze on, community spaces, party rooms, and a café courtyard inspired by James Turrell’s Skyspace.
The central lawn, dotted with yellow sun umbrellas and visible through expansive windows from the indoor pool areas, provides a nod to the sprawling grounds of the old pool. The tops of gum trees in the park, and Parramatta’s rapidly changing skyline, peek above the curved roof.
“A lot of it is about seeing swimming as something that is fundamentally pleasurable, and should be about an environment that feels more health and wellness-oriented than sports-oriented, and connecting you into the landscape rather than having this big shed you have to swim in,” Burges said.
He said it was designed to be inclusive, with level surfaces and few stairs, accessible change rooms and ramps into the pools, and sustainable, with 358 rooftop solar panels and natural ventilation.
Hession was among those who fought to stop the 58-year-old pool’s destruction.
“It was gut-wrenching. I didn’t believe they could close it,” he said. “It was like a sledgehammer because I came in one day, and they said you’ve got 12 months to go, and then the pool will be closed.”
The pool is expected to draw one million visitors per year. Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
“At that point, there was no replacement either. The uncertainty was the hardest part.”
Parramatta Swimming Club life member Ruth Rossettin, 78, who started swimming at the Olympic pool in the 1970s and became a long-time coach, said she was heartbroken.
“It was a beautiful pool. We just loved it. I wouldn’t talk to anyone when we lost it. It was my life, it was everything to me. [A pool] brings a lot to the community; it brought all these people together.”
Hession said the club continued to meet, albeit with fewer members, at the Epping Aquatic Centre while the pool was built. They made it work – “it’s the people who make a good club at the end of the day” – but longed to get back to Parramatta. Nonetheless, he admitted the group’s reunion for its preview swim was bittersweet.
“I’m a bit sad my father’s not here to see it,” he said.
Just as at the old pool, one of the stands next to the new outdoor pool bears the name of his father, Kevin Hession, a founding member of the Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club in 1964 who taught generations of children to swim. He died suddenly, aged 89, three years ago.
Parramatta Memorial Swimming Club member Ruth Rossettin, 78, has fond memories of the old Parramatta pool.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
“One of his famous quotes was, ‘Swimming is the only sport that will not only save your life, it could save someone else’s life’,” Hession said.
Club secretary Kelly Sinclair said her childhood memories were thick with nostalgia for the old pool. She joined the club in the 80s and said her first splash at the new centre was surreal.
It would take “a bit of time” for the pool to amass the same stockpile of memories as the old one, she said.
“It is a big change because it’s not the original pool, of course. But this morning there was a sense of, wow, this day’s finally come. Back to Parramatta pool.”
The council is gearing up for a busy summer at the aquatic centre’s four pools.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
Sinclair said the pool also brought fresh hope that more people in Parramatta, particularly young families, would have access to swimming lessons to grow their skills and confidence.
Pandey said the council was gearing up for the “biggest pool party in the country” when the pool opened, and a busy summer.
“We’re conscious the pools will get crowded, and safety will be our number one priority,” he said.
Parramatta is the most recent part of Sydney to get a new aquatic centre, as local councils forge ahead with plans to rebuild or refurbish the ageing post-war public swimming pools that sprung up in the 1950s and 60s and were once cherished as a symbol of modern Australia.
The pool will officially open to the public on Monday, September 25. Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
The shift away from older pools to more modern, expansive aquatic centres has often left communities without a public pool for years. Among the wave of transformations is the $89 million redevelopment of North Sydney Olympic Pool, which is due to reopen in April 2024 after years of cost blowouts and delays. Canterbury Leisure and Aquatic Centre’s overhaul is due in 2025; and a revamped Willoughby Leisure Centre is expected to reopen mid-next year.
Meantime, Rossettin said the long wait in Parramatta hadn’t dented her excitement.
Fresh from her first laps and a tour, she remarked the pool was beautiful. “I thought it looked lovely.
“They’ve turned it into a nice community asset, haven’t they? I think they should be proud of it.”
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