Brightening Up: How LED Retrofits Are Transforming Toronto's Pool and Sports Facilities
20 October 2026
Toronto's public aquatics and sports facilities are undergoing a major lighting upgrade, swapping out old fixtures to improve visibility, broadcast quality, and lower energy bills. The city has pledged to retrofit all of its 1,300 municipal buildings with energy-efficient LEDs.
The Retrofit Revolution
Driving the retrofits is a simple math: LED lighting uses up to 80% less energy than old-school incandescent or metal halide systems. "LEDs are a much more efficient light source," explains John Smith, Senior Energy Analyst with the City of Toronto. "They create less heat waste and need less electricity to produce the same light output."
Since 2013, the City has replaced metal halide fixtures over ice pads with T5HO fluorescent, and then further upgraded to LEDs. A $983,000 lighting retrofit program across 24 sports facilities is expected to pay for itself in 13 years. "With bigger facilities like the Pan Am Sports Centre, the energy and cost savings are even more significant," says Smith.
Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre Gets an Upgrade
The Pan Am pool complex has received a complete LED makeover. Musco Lighting's TLC for LED technology replaced the existing SportsCluster system, with striking results. "The upgraded system uses almost 75% less energy than the old halogen headlamps," reports Smith.
The facility was built for the 2015 Pan Am Games, and hosted an Event Horizon TV broadcast of a Toronto Raptors game. The aquatics area contains two 50-meter international pools and a 5-meter diving tank. So as Smith explains, Musco engineered the system for uniform illumination with glare - specifically for fans in the stands but also for broadcast clarity: "They set the target lighting to 2500 lux and used calculations and lighting simulations to avoid skip-glare."
Why LEDs are the Natural Choice for Pools and Sports Floors
Aquatic centres uniquely benefit from LEDs. "The high definition projectors at TV broadcasts need the uniform, high-output brightness that LEDs provide," says Smith. He notes glare control is also vital for fan clarity in the stands, and the workers below water: "You don't want light leaping off the pool surface to the eyes of the divers and swimmers."
Whether indoor or outdoor, the overhead lights in sport stadiums need to hold up to harm, like ball impact. Incandescent and halogen bulbs were highly susceptible to vibration and impact damage. As even modern fluorescents pose maintenance headaches, LEDs have assertion without durability woes.
The Benefits of LED
Without a shadow of doubt, retrofitting LEDs in Toronto's facilities is conserving big: "The waterfront building retrofit cut yearly electricity around 204,222 kWh, with direct savings of $24,500", says Smith. "That's almost 1,000 tonnes of C02 from the atmosphere."
Aside from the cost cuts, he notes the light is more even, consistent, quicker, and with longer-lasting bulbs and reduced maintenance. "Since we put up LEDs, there's been much less complaints about dimming and flickering." And that's not to mention how cooler LEDs are in summer, compared with incandescent and halogen.
A Phased Approach
Retrofitting isn't as easy as unscrewing a bulb. Servicing big municipal facilities takes intensive engineering, says Smith. For instance, adding dimmers allows energy efficient lighting without visual impairment. "Energy management is more complicated in a gymnasium or aquatic centre. Sensors can be tripped by motion but we're mindful of false triggers."
Toronto is taking a phased approach, prioritizing the largest facilities first. The LED upgrades are a big part of the City's push for net-zero emissions, to make its buildings greener and more economical.