Swimming Pool Renovations In County Should Be Completed By June Opening
County commissioners have awarded Carroll Construction of Spokane a contract to complete $460,000 in repairs and renovations to two Valley pools and a north Spokane pool.
The work at Terrace View and Park Road pools in the Valley and Holmberg pool in north Spokane will be finished by June, when the facilities open for the season, said Wyn Birkenthal, county Parks and Recreation Department director.
Improvements will include patching all cracks in the pool tanks and covering them with a new shell.
Pool furnaces will be overhauled and recirculation lines replaced, Birkenthal said. The chlorine gas systems will be replaced with safer chlorine pellet systems, which don’t carry the health risk of a leak.
Concrete floor surfaces in the pools’ locker and shower areas will be replaced with a surface that is easier to clean and less likely to harbor germs, bacteria and other organisms. The facilities will also get new paint jobs and new roofs, Birkenthal said.
In addition, the Terrace View pool will become handicapped accessible. Inside lighting will be improved and the locker rooms and shower areas will be refurbished.
“It’s a relief,” Birkenthal said. “The pools are old and they definitely have some problems that could lead to unexpected shutdowns.”
County commissioners considered closing the pools in 1994, but instead spent $150,000 for some patch-up work. At that time, they heard reports of chunks of pool crumbling away and floating in the water.
Leaky roofs and tanks remain a problem, officials said.
The disintegrating Valley Mission pool won’t receive repairs, since parks officials plan to close it at the end of the 1998 season. It may shut down sooner if additional problems develop.
The department hopes to replace the pool, which sits on an old garbage dump in Valley Mission Park. Officials would like to place the new pool on four acres of land across from the park. The land is part of a vacant nine-acre site owned by Modern Electric Water Co.
The Parks Department has told the utility of its interest in the land and offered to split the cost of an appraisal.
Modern Electric’s board of directors hasn’t yet accepted the offer, but plans to meet with parks officials soon to find out more about their proposal.
“If it would enhance the community … we would certainly want to see the project go,” said Mike Baker, Modern Electric’s general manager. “We’re going to be as flexible as we can. We think we can make it work.”
, DataTimes