Cheney locals climb, swing and slide into summer at new pool

The heart of Cheney was filled with music, chatter and the unmistakable thumping of diving boards Monday as families lined up for a dip in the city’s new pool.

The new aquatics center boasts two large slides a lazy river, an obstacle course, a rock wall and a zip line.

“We’ve never been to a pool with a climbing wall before,” 11-year-old Arianna Yancey said. She added, “Grown-ups really like the lazy river.”

Adrianna and her sister Kaylee, 8, could barely sit still as their mom, Regina Yancey, slathered them in sunscreen. They were looking forward to the park’s two new waterslides.

“We’ll probably go a lot more now that it’s close,” Regina Yancey said.

It has been four years since the Cheney community has had a public pool in their neighborhood. The old pool, which lasted around 50 years, had a tendency to break down toward the end of its run.

“Every year when we would go to open it up, there would be some sort of mechanical failure, some sort of pipe failure, something that would prevent us from opening on time,” said Dan Curley, Cheney’s capital project manager. “It was really frustrating for the community, and it was frustrating for us trying to deal with a pool like that.”

The new installation costed $15 million. Curley said that the numerous attractions were chosen based on community outreach, which garnered over 800 responses. Some features required extensive permitting to ensure pool-goer safety.

“Oh my gosh. So yeah, the permitting process was insane,” Curley said. “There’s conditions to us having certain attractions open, like we can’t have those open without a dedicated lifeguard around them and we have to shut down some of the other programming around there when those are open.”

“Before, it was just a pool,” Monday visitor Ken Morris, 49, said. “This is having a little bit more things to do. It’s a lot better.”

Chris Holliday, owner of Holliday Heating + Cooling + Electric, was one of the major sponsors of the center’s two waterslides, along with Cory Luttermoser, owner of Moser Inc. The friends grew up in Cheney and used to ride their bikes to the old pool.

“So many of our childhood memories are from there, and then even my daughters – our kids are 7, 9 and 12, all girls – they would go to the pool out there just a few years before it closed down,” Holliday said. “Especially not having it there available for the kids, it’s almost like you don’t miss something until it’s gone.”

But Curley said that the additions to Hagelin Park, which the new pool is a part of, aren’t over yet. He and his team will be adding a playground right outside of the aquatics facility, complete with pour-in-place rubber grounds.

“It was sort of inspired by all the progress we’re making on the park that we were like, well, it would be amazing to be able to add a new playground right here too,” Curley said. “And it also is the most inclusive playground in the Cheney Park system now because rather than wheeling a child through playground bark chips and stuff, there’s durable material that helps them get right up to the playground feature.”

Curley expects the playground to cost $115,000.

Visitors did have some concerns about the facility, though.

“If it had like an awning or like a roof around and then have the sun out there (on the pool), would be kinda nice,” Morris said.

Others worried that costs would be too high for Cheney locals, at $7 per adult and $4 per child for a 3-hour session.

“I think its a good opportunity to do things, but I am a bit concerned about the costs. I don’t think its going to be a feasible option for a lot of the actual residents here,” Alicia Park, 40 said. “For my family of four – because our babies would be free to go for both swim sessions would be $60 a day.”

Park said that despite the price, she and her family were excited to try out the pool and that in the future, she hopes that the pool can have increased accessibility for neurodiverse children.

“My only other concern too that I was thinking about for disabled children or like autistic, ADHD, this is very overstimulating. So I wonder if in the future they could potentially offer sensory friendly hours or something that’s more accommodating.”

The pool is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a 30 minute break from 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. On Sundays, open swim ends at 4:30 p.m.

Liam Shawgo dunks the ball through a basketball hoop placed poolside in the new recreation portion of the Cheney Aquatic Center. The newly constructed aquatic park held its grand opening Monday to throngs of pool-goers looking for some relief from the heat. The aquatic park showcases two waterslides, a ninja course, wading and lap pools for the public to use this summer.