Smaller pools being repaired as council discusses plans for 2027
With weeks of winter weather hopefully in the rearview mirror, Lansdale’s parks and recreation department is already looking toward spring and summer.
Parks staff gave an update last week on several major projects planned for spring and summer, including work now underway on one borough pool and plans for another.
“Both pools deserve the TLC, and honestly: they need it,” said parks and recreation Director Courtney Fox.
Borough swimming pools a the Whites Road and Fourth Street parks were both discussed at length in 2024, starting with a presentation that May from an outside consultant, who detailed for council the results of a study examining the short- and long-term equipment needs, aging infrastructure, and possible options for reconfiguring and revamping both.
At that time, the consultant estimated work at Whites Road around $1.2 million for mechanical repairs, another $1.8 million in reconfiguration and accessibility upgrades, with an additional $500,000 in upgrades to restrooms, and a roughly $2 million estimate for similar work at Fourth Street, plus about $500,000 for interior renovations of changing rooms there.
Council awarded a contract for just over $1 million in late 2024, with work to replaster the main pool and upgrade mechanical systems done that winter, in time for the pool to reopen for the public for Memorial Day 2025. A $2.2 million contract for work on the baby and intermediate pools was awarded by council last August, and that work is currently underway, Fox told the parks and recreation committee on Feb 4, with work still on target to be done by the 2026 pool season.
“If you’ve been by recently, it looks a little scary, but they’re further ahead than where our consultant thought they would be by this point,” she said. “We’re still on target to be open by Memorial Day weekend.”
Fox presented a contract not to exceed $272,000 for pool consultants Aquatic Facility Design to develop the formal engineering plans for the next round of work at Fourth Street.
“I’m excited about that: Fourth Street needs some love. They got a couple million dollars worth at Whites Road,” councilwoman Mary Fuller said.
Fox added that she and parks staff are currently working though “a lot of paperwork” for a recent grant awarded for a trail connection running through town and are always seeking outside funds that could help cover the costs of the pool repairs.
The Whites Road pool could also soon see another addition: Fox told the committee that a local high school art class has contacted the department to voice interest in painting one or more murals on the pool office and locker room buildings facing the main parking lots at Whites Road. No design has been finalized, but early concepts have been shared that could depict the name of the pool, stylized waves and swimmers, and could incorporate the curved L Lansdale logo adopted by the town in the early 2010s.
“If we’re letting this be painted on a public building, it’s going to be there for a long time. So we really need to be careful: we have to love whatever we’re going to agree to,” Fuller said.
So far, parks staff have indicated they could paint both buildings with a base coat of white this spring before any mural or design is applied, and the design could be finalized and painted this spring by students with supervision by their teacher, then maintained by parks staff as needed, and would not be impacted by any future renovations to those buildings.
During a visit to the site Tuesday, a contractor who asked not to be identified said he couldn’t give specifics on when work at Whites Road would resume, but said his firm did the main pool renovations there last year, and recent renovations to the North Penn High School natatorium, with no major issues: “We haven’t missed a deadline yet.”
Lansdale’s parks and recreation committee next meets at 7:30 p.m. on March 4 and full council next meets at 7 p.m. on Feb. 18, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org
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