Inside the renovated pool in Liberec, it is already evident how it will transform

Liberec – Inside the city swimming stadium in Liberec, whose renovation began last autumn, it is already evident how the spaces will transform. The work will last another year. Completion is expected on June 9, 2027, and the facility with three pools, saunas, a fitness center, and a pizzeria is likely to open about a quarter of a year later. The nearly complete reconstruction of the stadium will cost over 800 million crowns excluding tax. Štěpán Verner from the contractor company Metrostav believes that from a construction standpoint, there is nothing left about the pool that should surprise the builders.

"Maybe technology related to heating could still give us some trouble," Verner said to reporters today.

The work has progressed the furthest on the first floor, where the entrance to the stadium is located and where wellness and fitness areas will be. "In wellness, we are preparing to pour the floor screed this week so that we can then begin laying tiles, or possibly wall coverings and in some way prepare the installations of saunas, steam cabins, and so on. The same is happening now within the future new fitness area. We are laying polystyrene and starting to lay pipes for underfloor heating," Verner stated.

In the entrance hall, it is already evident where the reception and ticket counters will be. Wiring for the turnstiles has also been installed there. Through these, visitors equipped with chip watches will enter and then continue down the stairs, where fitness used to be. There will now be 15 changing rooms and over 700 lockers for storing belongings.

Access to the pool hall will also differ from the past; it will lead from the changing room around a small teaching pool. However, scaffolding is still present throughout the entire pool hall, built in rows along the fifty-meter length of the large pool. "The space is approximately 24,000 cubic meters. And this scaffolding fills the entire pool hall so that we can work on the sub-roof, where all the installations need to be suspended and then the grid. The ceiling tiles will then be suspended from that, giving us a uniform closed ceiling," Verner explained.

According to him, the builders will gradually begin to remove the scaffolding during the summer, and starting in autumn, they will apply tiles to the repaired basin of the large pool. "First, it will be necessary to apply a waterproofing slurry, then perform a flooding test to verify that it actually works, and only then will we begin tiling," he added.

For the indoor swimming stadium at Tržní Square in Liberec, this is the first extensive renovation since its opening in 1984. Only the skeleton of the building remains, everything else will be new. The original architectural style, authored by Pavel Švancer, will be preserved. This also applies to the color scheme, with red and white remaining predominant, which are traditional colors of Liberec.

The main reason for the reconstruction of the stadium is the replacement of old technological equipment, roof repairs, glazing of the building, and the leaking basin of the main pool. The modernization also includes the replacement of the red waterslide with a new one and the restoration of the iconic mosaic in the interior spaces.