Neighbors like Comstock pool as is
The neighbors who live around Comstock Pool and use it regularly during the summer had a message for Spokane City Hall this week: Don’t change it.
While recreational features like water slides and beachlike shallow areas have become popular around the country, most of the people who consider Comstock their pool wanted little of that during a planning meeting Tuesday at South Side Senior Activity and Community Center.
“Can you leave our pool as is?” asked Josie Dix, a resident of the area.
Comstock is one of five outdoor city pools planned for replacement under a $42.9 million bond issue approved by voters last fall. A sixth, new pool is going to be built at one of three possible locations in northwest Spokane to replace the former Shadle Park pools. The west side of Shadle Park, Loma Vista Park and Albi Stadium are under consideration for that pool.
Elsewhere, Hillyard residents are considering moving their pool to Harmon Park while Witter Pool is going to be rebuilt as an Olympic-size competition pool for area swim programs.
Comstock Pool, built in the late 1930s and now about 47 yards long, was sized for competition and has been popular among adult lap swimmers who crowd into the facility during each of three lap-swim sessions daily during the summer swim season, residents said.
When a consultant from a nationally-renowned pool design firm showed photos of modern multiple-use pools, Comstock residents were unmoved. The consultant said that water-current pools are popular and can be used for therapy or resistance training. Slides are popular, and parents with small children enjoy beachlike shallow areas, the consultant said.
Resident Kelly Masjoan said, “People just enjoyed being in the tank.”
A Comstock-area woman who brought two small children to the meeting said she had visited one in Colorado and really liked the multiple features, but appeared outnumbered in her sentiments.
When the residents learned that the $3.5 million budgeted for each of the new community pools would be enough to build a new 25-yard pool with eight lanes, they asked that the existing pool be rehabilitated at a lower cost. They said they would be willing to form a neighborhood group to support pool funding, and suggested that a concession area be added to serve pool users and generate income.
Roger Crum, interim city parks director, assured the residents that the city wants to build a pool that residents want.
Ever since parks officials began talking about replacing and upgrading pools several years ago, Comstock residents have been adamant about saving the Depression-era bathhouse at the east end of the pool with its elegant arched entryways.
“It’s a very handsome building. It needs some TLC,” said Rustin Hall, architect from ALSC of Spokane, which was hired to work on the pool projects.
Masjoan said, “This is probably a number one priority – keeping that bathhouse.”