Blogs

 

Case study: Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre

By intouch * posted 20-02-2018 12:58

  

The largest asset renewal and expansion project ever undertaken by the City of Mandurah, the $42 million redevelopment of the Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre (MARC) was built to provide aquatic and dry fitness facilities for the community of Mandurah and the wider Peel Region of Western Australia for a twenty-plus year period.


Delivered in two stages – the $21 million aquatic facilities opening in late 2015 and the $15.6 million dry fitness facilities opening early 2017 – the project demonstrated how careful planning, innovation, active management and a collaborative approach could achieve an outcome that not only represented value for money, but was also sustainable and finely attuned to the community’s needs.

The planning process

Screen_Shot_2018-02-20_at_12_56_49_PM.pngWhen the need for a new, improved recreational space to service the ever-growing Mandurah population was identified in the mid-2000s, the first step was to commission a survey to ascertain the community’s needs for the next 20 years, with a key finding being the desire for a 50 m pool.

“The community survey found around 80% of respondents indicated they’d prefer to do lap swimming in a 50 m pool as part of their recreation activities,” says Manager Service Operations at the City of Mandurah, Matthew Hall. “It was important for us as a regional facility to provide a flexible water space for that and the sorts of competitions that might occur at school and club level.”

The survey, combined with population forecasts and industry benchmarking, helped identify the requirements of the project, which were identified as: 2400 m2 of water space, including the 50 m pool, indoor leisure pool, indoor 25 m lap and program pool, spa (with adult hoist) and sauna. Meanwhile, the dry fitness facilities would require 8600 m2, including multi-purpose sports stadiums (six courts) and spectator seating, new gymnasium including outdoor fitness space, two group fitness studios and three renovated squash courts.

Integral to the planning process was the development of a sound funding strategy.

“It became clear that we needed partnerships with the federal and state governments if we wanted to deliver the facilities we needed for the longer term,” says Hall, explaining the contribution from government other than the City of Mandurah stood at around $25.5 million. “We were very fortunate and put a lot of hard work into the business case to gain their support.”

The City’s expertise at major infrastructure delivery, developed over the previous decade, was critical in many areas, not least their innovation in procuring a design and construction contract for the dry fitness stage under a target price tender arrangement.

“We worked very hard to produce a conceptlevel document that provided a lot of information around our requirements, [including] maintaining things like value, durability and whole of life value for money,” says Hall. “Another innovation is that we paid the final three proponents, who put forward a more detailed proposal supplying concept designs and outlining plans of how they were going to maintain the value adds within a target price of $15 million. It recognised the time and effort they’d put in and we’re confident that it led to the highquality submissions we received.”

Hall says the investment spent on the planning stage was integral to the success of the overall project.

“The more you invest early in getting certainty of cost and what’s deliverable, the less likely you are to run into issues later on,” he says. “There were changes, but because of the level of planning we were able to make those decisions in an informed, considered way.”

Hall also attributes the smooth and costeffective delivery of the project down to active management and a collaborative relationship with the consultant and contractor teams, Donovan Payne Architects and Perkins (WA) Pty Ltd, allowing for co-operative problem solving when issues arose.

Innovations and challenges

Perhaps the biggest innovation of the project was the adoption of $4.4 million geothermal heating, which provides up to 80% of the heat energy required for pool water and air heating.

Geothermal heating involved the construction of two bores, a production bore – which sources heated ground water from the hot sedimentary aquifer, between 835 and 915 m depth; and an injection bore, which returns the water into the upper levels of the aquifer between 322 and 568 m depth.

The benefits of geothermal heating are both economical – “In terms of operational savings, around $170,000 per annum,” says Matthew – and environmental. “The CO2e equivalent savings represent the avoidance of around one quarter of the city’s total recordable greenhouse gas emissions, so the environmental and sustainable benefits are considerable.”

Despite these innovations and benefits, the geothermal heating also provided the biggest challenge of the project. Significant difficulties were encountered during bore construction due to reactive shales and associated hole instability during the initial drilling process and installation of screens used to extract and re-inject geothermal water.

“We had to put solid casings all the way down to that depth and then use shape chargers, explosives basically, to blow out small perforations in the screens, a technique used regularly in the oil and gas industry but not geothermal,” says Matthew, adding that The City’s constructive, collaborative relationship with both the consultant team and contractor, allowed them all to work effectively together to come up with a solution.

While these issues greatly affected the timeline and pushed the geothermal heating budget from $3.6 to $4.4 million, Hall says when the long-term costs and environmental benefits are taken into account, geothermal heating was still well worth the angst.

“Yes, it is more high risk, so it’s important to assess the risks and make sure there are contingencies in place, but again, it’s not losing sight that it’s a longterm outcome, [especially] when you look at the comparative costs associated with natural gas.”

Geothermal heating wasn’t the only energyefficient innovative employed at the MARC, with others including the use of passive solar design elements, thermal mass, natural lighting, LED light fittings and smart controls and a renewable roof mounted solar panel energy supply system.

Another impressive innovation was stainless steel pool panel technology. A relatively new technology highlighted by the builder, Perkins in their original submission, the prefabricated stainless-steel panels meant a significant reduction in both cost and time.

Economic benefits

From the decision to renovate and extend existing facilities to the innovations detailed above, The City of Mandurah was able to deliver a project that represented sounds value for money. Over a 20-year period, the economic benefits are estimated at $90 million (economic cost benefit: $38 million), and include an increased participation in physical activity, reduction in sick leave and health care costs, and employment creation.

“There was short-term employment creation during project delivery, but the project also led to long term employment of 11 full-time employees,” says Hall. “That was very important to us.”
0 comments
15 views