Walltown, Trinity Ave. both still on track as indoor pool facilities
August 25, 2008
The great saga of the proposed indoor pool facilities for Walltown and Trinity Ave. got more play at last Thursday's City Council work session, as well-told by Ray Gronberg in a Saturday article in the Herald-Sun.
Last month, Mayor Bill Bell sounded like he was leaning towards a compromise outdoor pool for Walltown, with the Trinity Ave. facility -- an aging ex-YMCA that the City is set to buy back from Duke University -- seeing its indoor pool used for warm-water swim lessons especially for seniors and residents with disabilities.
While the two projects are still intended to complement each other, as Bell called for in July's discussion, look for Walltown's to be an indoor pool facility as well, albeit one with water slides and other recreational amenities.
According to Gronberg's retelling of the meeting events, it appears that at least part of the 2003 parks master plan -- which called for "four pool-equipped community centers on the southwestern, northwestern, northeastern and southeastern corners of the city" -- is now paper on the shelf, with one Parks & Rec administrator noting there were currently no plans or projections for additional public pools in Durham.
(Which is a bit odd, since the 2009-2014 Capital Improvements Program just passed a couple of months ago as part of the FY09 city budget specifically states relative to the southern Durham rec center that "This project will design and construct a full-service recreation center (pool and gym) to serve the rapidly growing neighborhoods of southern Durham. The first phase will be acquisition of property to site the center." Ray, Parks & Rec folks -- any ideas?)