Troubled North Sydney Olympic Pool development will not be ready for summer swimming

The delay plagued redevelopment of the North Sydney Olympic Pool will not see the facility opened to the public until early 2026, almost five years since the project began.

While builders Icon are scheduled to hand over the completed project as of 18th November 2025, it will take another two to three months to ‘commission and operationalise’ the pool before it can open to the public, North Sydney Council confirmed at its most recent meeting.

In addition, costs for the project - initially scheduled to take two years to complete - are expected to rise further with Icon submitting 26 variation claims since the last report to Council – launching the number of total claims to 541, with 116 under assessment currently.

13 variations totalling $22,700 have been agreed since the last report to the Council, with $92.28 million being the revised construction contract sum, currently under the forecasted completion cost of $122 million, but more is yet to come.

It was noted that the forecast was provided in February 2024 with an anticipated completion date for December 2024, but now there are a “significant number of variations … which will place further pressure on the allocated budget for this project,” according to Council documents.

Documents reveal that $22,237.49 has been approved for scoreboard audio integration along with $5,358.88 for pool hall clock power provisions.

The redevelopment has triggered a series of lawsuits, with North Sydney Council sueing Brewster Hjorth Architects for a breach of contract as their roof design process caused significant delays.

Icon is suing the Council for $28 million in damages, due to the delays the design changes of the roof structure caused.

Despite community members calling for transparency over the project, Councillors agreed that reports and attachments should be confidential.

Advising that the Council does value transparency, but stating it is necessary to keep the meeting closed due to legal reasons, North Sydney Mayor Zoe Baker stated "like other councils on major projects, there is legal professional privilege and commercial in confidence, at the very end of the project and the end of the litigation I know that this council will release everything.”

Image: Brewster Hjorth Architects' concept for the entry to the redeveloped North Sydney Olympic Pool. Credit: Brewster Hjorth Architects.