Nobody’s pool
A reader recently contacted City Watch inquiring about the situation at the McCully swimming pool. “It’s been like five years already since it closed,” she said. Almost. The pool was closed for straightforward renovations in June 2005.
Like many other municipal pool renovations in town this decade, the one at 831 Pumehana Street next to the District Park has been mired in delays for years. We went to check it out and things didn’t look promising, with most of the park and pool structure still surrounded by derelict-looking fencing.
According to Collins Lam, Deputy Director of the City Department of Design and Construction, the problems began soon after work began. “At that time, we identified some major structural deficiencies in the pool itself,” Lam says. “We had to shut down the pool and perform some demolition on the pool deck and in the offices and bathrooms.”
As these things tend to, the project soon increased in scale. After a long phase involving work on the walls, columns and footings of the attached gymnasium, which also had structural problems, Lam says the City is preparing to begin what has become the third and “hopefully” final phase of the McCully construction: reconstruction of the swimming pool and related infrastructure. Lam says he expects to begin pool reconstruction by October.
The new target for the reopening of the McCully swimming pool: September 2010.
