By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The director of the Glasgow Parks and Recreation Department confirmed Monday what had been increasingly suspected, saying it was due to contending with “a lot of Mother Nature issues” this year.
“We are not going to be opening the aquatic center this year,” Eddie Furlong said of the new facility under construction atop American Legion Park. “It’s just not going to be done in time. We still don’t even have a definitive date just yet, but we’re thinking, based on everything that’s going on, and if they can stay on schedule, everything should be pretty much done between now and early September.”
The original plan called for completion this month.
The conversation was taking place at a special-called meeting of the Glasgow Common Council Parks and Recreation Committee on Monday evening.
Furlong told the council committee, “We don’t know that [date] 100 percent for sure yet, because I was just up there today, and they’ve done a lot in the last week, but they still have a whole lot to do, so there’s just no way for us to get it open this year.”
Indeed, although a tremendous amount of progress has been made since Glasgow News 1’s last visit to the park, in May, a tour of the site on Tuesday confirmed that much work remains to be completed.
The facility is replacing the old swimming pool that opened in 1976 and had become increasingly difficult to keep it going.
Royse asked about what had been accomplished since they were there last week, and Furlong said the base coat has been put down for the pickleball courts, and they were expecting the top coat to be applied Wednesday. When GN1 was present Tuesday morning, new blacktop was over the four-court area, and workers were installing light fixtures there.
Furlong said painting was underway at the poolhouse, and the sidewalk leading to the daycamp room at the end of that structure was being poured. A lot of electrical and plumbing work were also taking place there, he said.
Over the weekend, the company installing the water slides had started their work assembling a stairwell tower and other structures that will support the slides themselves. Two taller, twisting slides are going at the end of the aquatic area opposite the pool house, and a shorter family slide will empty into the deeper – but still relatively shallow – end of the zero-depth entry pool. That pool portion will also have multiple play features within it. He said they came in late last week.
The pool area also has a lap-lanes section and a separate area for a lilypad bridge, the materials for which were expected this week.
Furlong said they were expecting to have cranes onsite Wednesday to lift the portions of the slides so they could be assembled.
He said he and Mayor Henry Royse had come to the definite conclusion roughly two weeks ago that the aquatic center would not be ready in time.
“We could really mess up by trying to get too fast with what’s lacking,” the mayor said.
“Yeah,” Furlong said, “we owe it to the community to make sure that we open and give them the absolute best thing that we can give them with no hiccups – knock on wood.”
This illustration shows the plan for American Legion Park created by Brandstetter Carroll with input from city officials that was finalized in March 2024. To view a PDF version of the image that can be enlarged to better see the various elements, click here.
He said he and another staff member are going to the Russell Sims Aquatic Center in Bowling Green later in the week to learn about how some things have been addressed there. One question has to do with monitoring the number of people in attendance, they’ll have a capacity of 299 on the pool deck and 142 in the water at one time.
Once construction is completed on everything in the current phase, the plan is to host an open house to give community members a preview of the aquatic facility, Furlong said. He said they would have water in the pool, but people would not be able to get in it, but they can see what they’ll be able to play in next year.
Although the aquatic center won’t be open for use until 2026, other portions of the revamped park, including the pickleball courts and walking trail, that are under construction now will be available for use once all the work is done on them.
A few features, e.g. basketball court, outdoor exercise equipment and dog park, won’t come until the next phase of work. The disc golf course still has to be reconfigured, and Furlong thinks that could happen in the spring.
Pricing
Furlong distributed a proposed individual, family and seasonal pricing list for use of the aquatic center and asked the group to give it some thought and they could finalize it at the next committee meeting.
For example, the old admission fees were $5 for ages 13 and up, $4 for 3- to 12-year-olds. Admission was free for children 2 years and under. The suggested new amounts would be $10, $8 and $2, respectively. Military, senior and city-employee discounts would be available, and after 3 p.m., the price would be reduced by $2.
The old family season pass price was $150 for up to four members of the same household and $25 for each additional person. The tentative price for such a pass at the new facility would be $300 for the first four people and $50 for each additional person. Individual season passes were $100, and that would possibly go to $150.
An early-bird sale price may be offered for individual and family season passes.
“We checked prices with other aquatic centers in our area; that’s kind of where we fell,” he said. “We are still working on figuring out our pricing for party rental. It’s going to be a lot different than it used to be, because the old pool, you shut the whole pool down and we had basically two lifeguards that covered the long part of the pool.”
A total of three had to be on deck at all times to cover all the areas, he added.
With the configuration and features of the aquatic center, more lifeguards are required at one time, and it appears they would have to have at least eight on hand at all times at the new facility, according to his preliminary information, he said. All told, they’ll probably need to have about 30 lifeguards hired to have enough in rotation.
So, for party rentals, they may be able to close off some areas, but they’ll still have a lot more to watch after, so those costs will need to be included in the pricing.
“We’re trying to figure up how we can open most of the areas, still get the coverage we need, and still make it affordable as well,” Furlong said.
At the full city council meeting that almost immediately followed the committee meeting, Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, provided construction updates on two of the city’s other current projects as well as work at the park.
He spoke more in construction terms and percentages of completion for various aspects, concluding with a possible substantial-completion date of Aug. 22, when the final pool inspection could be done. Substantial completion, though, is still only 85 percent to 90 percent overall, he pointed out.
Additional topics
Other updates Furlong provided during the committee meeting included:
– “Everything has gone up on our end, so we feel like we should have everybody else help as well,” Furlong said. “So we raised the cost just a little bit on our fees for everything.”
The across-the-board changes took effect July 1, when the new fiscal year began. He said this was the first time in 10 years they’ve done this.
– The Parks and Recreation Department is starting a youth volleyball program this fall, with signups to begin in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, signups for fall youth soccer and adult volleyball are ongoing.
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