Check out the unique features at Kitchener's newest rec centre

So I'm at the Cowan Recreation Center in Kitchener just on Huron and Fisher-Hallman Road. This is the city of Kitchener's largest facility and one of the largest projects that the city undertook a few years ago when they broke ground. I took a tour of the facility with city staff and they showed me some of the neat features of this building including the glass floor for the gymnasium So we're now inside the Aquatic Center, and also the stainless steel pools. which features the region's first two stainless steel pools. We have a leisure pool for programming and for classes, and then we have an eight-lane, 25-meter competition pool. Both the pools are actually larger than any other pool that the city has owned or operated. Really, the biggest benefit is they're easier to clean and maintain, and compared to traditional tile and grout pool, they never have to be drained to re-tile or re-grout. So if we maintain this well, we can keep the pool filled for the life of this building, which means more programming time for our patrons and our residents. What is unique about this gymnasium? Well, the unique feature here is, of course, our multi-sport glass floor. So if you look down behind me, you'll see what look like game lines and casing. So that is where the LED strip lights actually go in. And then we have dark gray glass panels that come right on top. And we can control the lights with LED drivers and we turn them on and off at the touch of a button. The biggest reason is the simplicity, right? The visibility of just being able to see the lines for the sport you're playing. Then we've already talked about durability where we can and will support a lot of wheelchair sports. Another cool feature about this centre is that it is the city's first net-zero building as well. Part of that is solar panels. So we have 1,700 solar panels installed right here at the facility. So just above us the entire roof of the gymnasium is covered with solar panels and where we were in the field house almost half of the field house is covered with solar panels and those solar panels will generate half of the electricity required to run this entire facility.