Maxcy Gregg pool closed for 2012

Children and swimmers who each summer look forward to diving into the Maxcy Gregg Park pool will have to splash around elsewhere during the summer of 2012.

The 60-plus-year-old public pool will be closed for the first time in the memory of city staffers.

But the upside is that Columbia might get a new, saltwater pool that could host competitive swim meets that would bring income into city coffers, City Council decided Tuesday.

A new pool could add as much as $630,000 to the $970,000 council already had set aside for pool improvements at the Blossom Street park that also is undergoing a major facelift.

“Everyone from across the city uses Maxcy Gregg (pool),” senior assistant city manager Alison Baker told council during a work session. “Maxcy Gregg is the city’s most integrated pool. What’s best,” he said, “is … not to put a Band-aid on the pool. Do what’s better long term.”

He argued that spending nearly $1 million to replace pool liners that have failed for a decade, causing leaks, and sticking with the pool’s chlorine-based filtration system would not solve persistent problems.

Baker said a new pool would last 20 to 30 years; saline-based treatment would reduce maintenance expenses as well as eliminate the risk to city workers who must maintain chlorine tanks and the filtration system that is subject to corrosion.

Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine said the city needs to come up with a schedule so that other city pools can accommodate recreational swimmers that have counted on Maxcy Gregg.

“This makes sense, to build a pool for the future,” said Councilwoman Belinda Gergel, who represents the district where the 100-year-old park is located and has pushed its renovation. “I don’t know where we’re going to get the money.”

Council directed staff to proceed with planning for a new pool but asked that staffers come up with ways to reduce the $630,000 extra price tag.

Funding for a new pool will be determined as council grapples with the 2012-13 budget beginning next month.

To make the pool meet standards for competitive meets, it must be shortened slightly for long courses and widened by six feet for shorter courses for younger swimmers, Baker said.

The $970,000 in improvements includes not only a liner with a 15-year guarantee, but new equipment for the chlorine system, new in-pool lighting, new decks, renovation of the bathhouse and making the pool meet federal standards for accessibility by swimmers with physical disabilities, Baker said.

Public Works director Missy Gentry warned council that to come up with $630,000 for Maxcy Gregg’s pool, one or two other city projects would likely lose funding. Gentry did not say which projects.

Gergel, in urging city manager Steve Gantt to find money for a new pool, told him, “I want you to really put your bifocals on and really look.”