Columbia City Council has come up with an additional $750,000 to replace the pool at Maxcy Gregg Park with one that would accommodate competitive swimming events as well as the city’s casual swimmers.
Council’s unanimous vote Tuesday means the city is to spend up to $1.75 million on a saltwater pool that is to be ready for the swimming season next year. The pool, with its leaking liner, is to be closed this summer for the overhaul.
“Maxcy Gregg will be open again on Memorial Day” next year,” Allison Baker, the assistant city manager who oversees parks and recreation programs, said Wednesday.
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The pool will be the city’s most expensive and means that, altogether, council has spent $2.25 million improving the 100-year-old Maxcy Gregg Park near the USC campus, city manager Steve Gantt said.
Councilwoman Belinda Gergel, perhaps the park’s most vocal supporter, said council’s decision realizes her hope for a restored park and pool.
“I was tremendously excited,” said Gergel, who is stepping down from office. “That’s one of the things that I feel we needed to complete.”
Councilman Daniel Rickenmann said some of the improvements at the park are “extravagant.”
“It has paved walkways and a wrought-iron fence,” he said. “We have several parks that would just like to have fresh grass.”
A new saltwater pool would save on maintenance costs compared with the current chlorine-based filtration system, Baker has said. A new pool also would bring money into the city through competitive swimming events that the current pool cannot accommodate.
The new money is coming mostly from the city’s federal Community Development Block Grant allocation, said assistant city managers Teresa Wilson and Missy Gentry. Council approved taking $600,000 in CDBG funding. The rest of the $750,000, or $150,000, is from a city account that contains leftover construction money from a range of projects such as streetscaping, some of which were finished as long ago as 10 years ago, Gantt said.
To handle competitive swimming meets, Maxcy Gregg pool must be slightly shorter for long courses and widened by 6 feet for shorter courses intended for younger swimmers, Baker said. It is to become a 25-meter by 50-meter pool. The project also includes a remodeled bathhouse, including showers, bathrooms and office space.
Baker said he expects construction work to start within 60 days unless the city decides to seek new bids on the expanded project. But he said it is likely that Paddock Pool Equipment Co. of Rock Hill will be awarded the contract to install a new pool. Paddock had been selected to improve the pool before the city decided to replace it.
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