Online survey on future of Oak Ridge Pool

August 9, 2023 by Ben Pounds

While debate continues about the shape the Oak Ridge Outdoor Pool will take in the future, it’ll be open next summer.

The pool is set to close for this season Monday, Aug. 14.

The city is looking at designing a new pool or pools to take its place at the same location at 172 Providence Road.

However, city senior communications specialist Lauren Gray said in an email that she still expects the pool to open again next summer.

City Recreation and Parks Director Jon Hetrick said in May that just designing the new pool might take over a year.

Gray said she did not know when construction might begin. Now, the city is surveying the public about pool renovations on the website oakridgeoutdoorpool.com/.

Staff have cited issues with leaking water and adherence to codes as reasons to build a new pool. City of Oak Ridge Aquatics manager Vonda Wooten has also raised concerns about hiring enough lifeguards to watch the currently large pool, and has called its filtration system “a daily struggle” to operate.

Engineer Carry Dennis with the company Kimley-Horn said the existing pool loses 110,000 gallons per day, in a recent presentation to Oak Ridge residents, joined by landscape architect Alisha Eley.

Hetrick at the same presentation said the pool receives a waiver each year from the Tennessee Department of Health due to the way it adds chlorine to its spring-fed water from the sides rather than the middle. The Oak Ridge City Council has voted unanimously to give up to $55,200 for design and engineering services to Nashville based Kimley-Horn to survey the public and put together a plan for a new pool.

Dennis said rebuilding a pool like the current one would cost around $20 million.

In addition to the website, the city’s also been polling people both at the pool and at a public meeting in June on what they’d like to see. Dennis and Eley presented different ideas including adding slides, a climbing wall, a larger island, play structures, a splash pad, a lazy river or a shallow area with chairs. They even talked about dividing the pool into several smaller pools. None of these ideas are certain yet.

“As we address the pool’s structure, update the equipment, and bring the pool up to current codes, we have an opportunity to explore new recreational offerings at the pool,” Recreation and Parks Special Projects Coordinator Seth Rodgers said in a recent news release.

“One option would be to leave the pool essentially as-is, with only updates that are needed to bring it into current code compliance; other options include new equipment and changes to the layout of the pool.

“We really just want to give the public just what they want,” he said in an earlier interview.

Dennis has said it’s possible to rebuild the current pool but add other things to the side.

“It’s definitely an option,” he said. “An expensive option, but it’s an option.”

He said the biggest constraint to bringing the pool up to current codes is the chlorine circulation issue.

Some citizens have spoken against some of the ideas the city and engineers have suggested.

“No kiddie pool with toys will ever take the place of this place,” said James Brent, originator of the Friends of Oak Ridge Outdoor Pool Facebook group, in an interview while standing next to the pool.

Another citizen at the June meeting said the playgrounds the engineers presented would only last two to three years, and compared them to the failed Oak Ridge Mall.

“That is going to take away one of the last things our city is known for apart from the atomic bomb and Big Ed’s Pizza,” he said of the renovations.

Others, however, have voiced support for changes, with one citizen at the meeting saying she preferred to take children to the Lenoir City pool instead of the Oak Ridge one due to its climbing wall and slide.

“That’s what kids like to do,” she said.

Starting out as a natural spring pond, the Oak Ridge Outdoor Pool became a swimming pool in 1944, with renovations in 1945. Its last major renovation occurred in 1992 through 1993. It received a historical marker in 2022.

For questions or more information, call the Oak Ridge Recreation and Parks Civic Center front desk at 865-425-3450, or visit it at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike.