Investigation: Deep dive shows PCC left Aquatic Center to degrade for years

Over a several month investigation, the Courier sifted through documents, public records requests, interviewed Pasadena City College’s (PCC) swim coach and administration and pieced together a story that showed how the college avoided putting any money towards the Aquatic Center as it decided whether or not to move the pool altogether starting as early as 2016.

However, before the college took up the position of not spending a significant amount of money towards fixing the damage at the Aquatic Center in 2016, it also appears that there might have been earlier signs of damage in 2014 that were not being addressed, according to the public records request which was later corroborated by swim and water polo coach Terry Stoddard in an interview in early June.

It is now likely that after all these years of questions looming over the future of the Aquatic Center, it is going to remain in its current location, according to PCC spokesperson Alex Boekelheide in an email from early June.

“We are at this really key juncture at the moment where the college is doing what it does to make a decision, which is to talk to all of our constituent groups and get a lot of feedback and bring people to the table and have a very large conversation about the right direction for the college to go,” Boekelheide said. “A lot of what has gotten us to this point is that we are thinking very deliberately about how the pool fits into the campus landscape literally and you know what the proper way then to invest in it would be from that decision.”

Over the several year period that it took the college to decide the future of the pool, the cost of repairs steadily ballooned from $700,000 in 2014 to a total of $900,000 in 2019, according to Stoddard.

In 2024, the latest repair costs were estimated at between $2 million and $5 million, and to move the pool to a new location on campus the overall cost would be $15 million or more, according to Vice President of Business and Administrative Services Candace Jones.

Jones attributed the rise in costs to inflation, supply chain issues, heightened maintenance costs, and plans to replace the bleachers, among other needs to complete a full refurbishment at the current Aquatic Center before it reopens and if it stays there.

“I don’t know that the administration would want to make a financial decision to invest millions in place and then demolish it in order to reopen on the southeastern corner of Bonnie,” Jones said. “But we see that on all projects on campus. That wouldn’t be the only project impacted by cost escalation.”

In the 2014 document that was shared in one of the Courier’s public records requests, Stoddard had been keeping notes of several things the pool contractor at the time was not addressing beyond the normal operations of the Aquatic Center, including a full deck replacement, addressing surge pit issues, and a full re-plastering of the pool. Those issues that Stoddard made a list of in late 2014 have not been addressed to this day, according to Stoddard.

The construction company, Jack Schulman Construction Inc. that was on contract with the college to maintain the Aquatic Center through 2019 was not addressing the damage Stoddard listed in his notes. The construction company could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

The damage that has occurred over the last several years was caused by inconsistent maintenance and not doing basic re-plastering of the blue topical finish in the pool. These kinds of replastering projects should be done every seven to 10 years according to Stoddard.

“I’ve watched a lot of pools over, I’ve been a lifeguard since I was 15 years old and now coming on to 50 years,” Stoddard said. “Water and chlorine have an effect on their facilities. So they require regular care. For example, when a pool is built the way it is with plaster, then it should be replastered every seven to 10 years. So in the last 25 years this month, it should have been done three times. That should have been done.”

The Aquatic Center opened to the public and classes in June 1999, according to Stoddard.

“The college has been deliberating over the future of the Aquatic Center since work began on the Facilities Strategic Plan [also known as the FMP] in 2016,” Boekleheide said. “During this time the college has made small investments in maintaining the facility, but has held off on comprehensive improvements until its future was clear.”

However, Stoddard said that to his knowledge, the college had kept the pool up to code to keep it clean, but that none of the necessary repairs to keep it open long term happened.

Despite its closure and its uncertain fate, the pool has been regularly maintained since 2020, according to the September 2023 Courier article on the Aquatic Center.

“Draining a pool creates a whole new set of issues and hazards,” facilities director Richard Laret said. “Since the relocation of the pool has been an open question, maintaining the pool in the current state is safer than draining it. The costs are minimal as compared to the pool being in use.”

Another part of the damage to the Aquatic Center is the cantilevered deck which is the part of the decking that hangs over the pool’s edge and is what has fallen into the current pool in large visible chunks. This is due to the fact that during construction of the pool in the late ‘90s the construction company used the lowest grade rebar, causing cracking and lifespan issues on the deck of the pool. It is recommended that schools should use “epoxy-covered rebar” in its place for a longer lifespan, according to Stoddard.

Image: PCC Public Records Request, May 2021.

However, in an earlier Courier story published in fall 2023, Laret said in an email that the cracking in the pool “was caused by moisture seeping in and, expanding the reinforcing steel, and cracking the concrete foundation.”

Cerritos College replaced its pool deck and cantilevered decking in 2023 for $498,000 after using the same type of “non epoxied” rebar in the construction of its pool. Stoddard also alleged that the same company was used by both Pasadena City College and Cerritos in the original projects; however, the Courier could not independently confirm that detail.

This damage has kept the pool closed since December 21 2020, when the administration officially closed the pool due to the damage, according to a previous Courier report from September 2023.

However, the pool was closed even earlier because of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 12, 2020 — 1551 days ago (as of publication), a stat that Stoddard keeps track of every day on his phone, waiting for the day the pool can be used again.

“My favorite place to be is standing on the pool deck and watching the sunrise and a morning practice,” Stoddard said. “And then in the evening to watch the sunset and have my colleagues and students walk by and say good morning, good afternoon, goodnight and it has created a sense of belonging for our campus. We were saving lives by teaching people that didn’t know how to swim, to swim, thousands over 20 years. And my least favorite place to be is having an architect tell me that there’s a better use of that space.”

PCC remains at Polytechnic High School’s aquatic facilities for the foreseeable future. In return, Poly uses PCC’s Tennis Courts as a part of the agreement between the institutions. PCC was not able to verify in time for publication if the college pays any fees to use the facilities at the high school.

A 2017 annual inspection of the Aquatic Center by the Pasadena Health Department Environmental Division (PHDED) was the first known third-party flagging of the damage to the pool’s shell outside of the college. Three years before the initial PHDED report, many of the communications had been between Stoddard and others within PCC’s facilities department.

The college facilities department was fully aware of the damage prior to these PHDED reports and the requests from Stoddard to address those problems cited in that note released in the public records request.

Prior to Stoddard compiling the notes that were shared in the public records request, PCC had approved several payments at two Board of Trustees meetings in March and June 2014, calling for the repairs to be done to the pool’s deck, and “immediate spalling repairs.” These fixes were contracted out to Spectra Company, a Pomona-based contractor, who did not respond to a request for comment on whether the repairs were done or not in time for publication.

However, according to Spectra’s projects page, the PCC Aquatic Center is listed as a part of their portfolio, including several other Pasadena-centric projects.

“I don’t want to be incorrect,” Stoddard said. “I have no knowledge that it did or didn’t happen.”

It wasn’t until the September 2019 inspections from the PHDED that the pool deck began to appear as a serious issue in their reports.

In each of the inspection reports beginning in 2017, PHDED asked the college to address the issues; however, the issues were not at critical enough levels for PCC to incur fines or be asked to shut down the Aquatic Center, according to the PHDED in later emails.

“Violations for the shell and deck during the 2017 and 2019 inspections were not critical and did not meet criteria for pool closure,” Environmental Health Division Manager Rachel Janbek said in a March 2024 email to the Courier. “At some point after that, the school made a decision to close the pool. They continue to maintain water quality which is required by law to prevent mosquito breeding.”

Although, in spring 2021 when the college was preparing to return to in-person instruction for sports, the inspection from PHDED asked that both the deck and pool’s shell be fixed to comply with health and safety regulations before classes resumed. Those repairs have yet to be made, pending a decision by the college on the ultimate future of the Aquatic Center.

One of the only known instances that the college attempted to fix the Aquatic Center was in February 2022 when the Board of Trustees at the time approved a solicitation for “Aquatic Center Design Services.” However, it did not move forward because the college was not clear on where the pool would end up.

Only a finite amount of maintenance and facilities funds come from California each year and can only cover so much of what is needed on a campus with several buildings that are over 50 years old, according to both Boekelheide and Jones.

When the Community College Chancellor’s office is putting together each year’s budget information, maintenance is usually “at the top of the we-can-put-that-off list,” according to Boeklehiede.

“Maintenance is often something that kind of gets squeezed and trickles down to us, you know we do our best to maintain this campus,” Boekelheide said. “Lots of the buildings are more than six or seven decades old. There’s a lot of work to be done and maintenance budgets are always limited. So it’s hard to say exactly when gaps might have occurred in maintenance budgets.”

In 2015 the college prepared the original FMP as a bond package to revitalize and reimagine the campus and had several design firms come in and create proposals for the future of PCC. At the time the college decided on design firm HGA, who originally was behind the proposal to move the Aquatic Center to where the Science Village is located, according to Stoddard.

As a part of that master plan, HGA outlined “990-plus million” in repairs and maintenance goals for the college over the next several years, according to Stoddard. However, the college had to zero in on what really needs to get done and core future projects, according to Jones in a May Courier report.

One of those core proposals in 2016 was moving the Aquatic Center to the Southeastern end of the campus where the Science Village is currently located. Demolishing the W building for a new academic building and student learning spaces was also proposed to take its place.

HGA could not be reached for further comment in time for publication for the reasoning behind the original idea for moving the Aquatic Center to a new location.

It is possible that there might’ve been attempts to repair the Aquatic Center in 2020, but the plans were possibly put on hold because of the pandemic, according to Jones.

“There very possibly could’ve been plans in flight and then put on pause when the facility was closed,” Jones said. “I know that those issues continue to grow as we’re needing to think through the future of that facility in that physical location versus what the original facilities plan had envisioned.”

The plan was originally going to be proposed to voters in 2020, but that was delayed by the onset of the pandemic. The FMP was later re-proposed and passed overwhelmingly by voters in the November 2022 elections as the $565 million Measure PCC bond.

Since the solicitation of bids that the Board approved in February 2022, there has been no other Board action on the future of the Aquatic Center. However, that is set to change with the approval of the “Post-COVID-19” revamp of the FMP at the June 18 Board of Trustees meeting, according to both Boeklehiede and Jones.

“I feel like as long as there’s a plan in place to make sure that our programs don’t skip a beat that we should do that and follow that plan,” Stoddard said. “And sometimes you have to make way for something shiny, new to be built and progress to occur. But I feel strongly that in those 1547 days that we could have been doing something and we can be doing something. I’m really hoping that the decisions that are before everyone involve giving our students a chance to be back in the amazing classroom that was available from 6 in the morning till 9 at night for campus use, co-curricular teams, extension and community participation. That’s where my prayers are. I love this place. So I’m sure whatever we do, it’ll be an amazing thing going forward.”

Colin Haskins, Sabrina Farooq and former Courier Assistant News Editor Ben Avraham contributed to reporting.