Newburgh officials eye improvement and alternatives for aquatic center

Posted 8/18/21

With the dog days of August here, Newburgh City officials are looking at future ways for city residents to beat the heat. Unfortunately, offerings for the summer of 2022 will not include a swimming …

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Newburgh officials eye improvement and alternatives for aquatic center

Posted

With the dog days of August here, Newburgh City officials are looking at future ways for city residents to beat the heat. Unfortunately, offerings for the summer of 2022 will not include a swimming pool at Delano Hitch Park.

The City Council, at their August 5 work session, adopted resolutions authorizing the city manager to accept proposals and execute contracts with Clark Patterson Lee for professional engineering design services for Delano-Hitch Recreation Park Aquatic Center Improvements in the amount of $55,000 and for splash pads at Tyrone Crabb and Xavier Lunan Parks in the amount of $16,000.

Splash pads
Splash pads have recently become popular family recreation destinations in cities of all sizes, according to Landscape Architect David Knowles. The pads have very little standing water, offering a safe environment in which children can play without the risk of drowning.
While not meant to be a replacement to the pool, they offer a fun water experience while requiring a relatively small financial investment. For municipalities struggling with functionally obsolete and costly pools, splash pads are a smart alternative. They are scalable, allowing them to meet wide-ranging levels of service and budget. The jets and sprays offer an endless combination of choreographed movements, intensity, and sizes of water.

Communities are implementing stand-alone splash pads, integrating them into existing pools and playgrounds, and including them in the design of new aquatic complexes. The city plans to have two working splash pads next year, one at the Tyrone Crabb Park, the other at the Xavier Lunan Park.

The pool
The pool at Delano Hitch park has been closed for the past two summers due to COVID and a general state of disrepair. City officials have the cost of repairing the pool will exceed $1 million.

Alexandra Church, Director of Planning and Development for the City of Newburgh, presented the council with three options. They could repair the current aquatic center; they could build a new Olympic-sized pool similar to what was once there, or they could build a new hybrid model, similar to what is there now, with a slide and/or kiddie pool and a small adult pool.

“These options would be presented to council before we go out to design and bid,” Church said.

Council members seemed to favor the creation of an Olympic-sized pool.
“Nowhere in between New York City and Albany is there an Olympic-sized pool,” said Councilman Anthony Grice. “It will help us with swimming lessons and will helps us if we want to do some sporting events.”

Councilman Omari Shakur agreed.

“We need to get back to the Olympic-sized pool,” he said.

Regardless of which plan is ultimately chosen, it seems clear that there will not be a swimming pool in operation next summer, and they should look for alternatives.

“If we’re not going to have a pool next summer, we’re going to have to have some contingencies in place,” Mayor Torrance Harvey said.
Councilwoman Ramona Monteverde asked if a refurbished dumpster, filled with water, could serve as a temporary pool.

In many cities, including New York City, the pop-up pools began appearing in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by heat and lacking in green spaces. The mini pools would be in the form of repurposed Dumpsters, which the city has already done in Manhattan in 2010 and in Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2013.

The mayor said he would reach out to the Newburgh Enlarged City School District which has just completed renovations to its indoor pool at Newburgh Free Academy. Also mentioned was the pool at the Mount Saint Mary College Kaplan Center.

“I know for a fact, our elderly community and our adult community want night swimming for adults,” Harvey said.