By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent
DE PERE – After some fine-tuning and minor adjustments, De Pere’s Board of Park Commissioners gave the green light to the final conceptual plan for the Legion Park aquatic facility.
It’s not too dissimilar to a version made public several months ago, but a few shifts were made.
They include:
• Adding a half-meter diving board to the previous two diving boards (which measure one meter and three meters high), for a total of three.
• Increasing square footage of the shallow-water area by about 1,000 square feet, giving parents and small children more room to play.
• Adding a sidewalk path on the south side, just outside the enclosed pool area.
• Moving the whole layout west toward the tennis court to maximize the size of the pool and accommodate the added shallow area, while preserving the century-old trees.
• Reducing the size of a breakwall separating the shallow and deep areas of the pool.
The pool’s estimated final price tag of $6.4 million comprises the following costs, among others:
• $516,000 for site development of the park (including excavation, landscaping, creating an access drive for maintenance personnel, parking lot and access drive curb and gutter, walkways, deck drainage, turf and irrigation, pool deck lighting, perimeter fencing and general lighting).
• $1.6 million for architecture, including a new bath house, new mechanical building and a shade trellis.
• $2.65 million for costs under the umbrella category of aquatics, which also includes general works and items.
Among the costs are the main pool and tot pool, interactive water features and water-activity equipment, deck equipment, the three diving boards, two vacuum cleaners (robotic and manual), safety equipment, testing and maintenance of the pool; as well as demolition of the existing pool, bath house and decking.
• $254,000 for furniture, fixtures, and equipment for the building, site and pool, including lockers, changing room benches, manager’s office, phone system and computers, staff break room, staff lockers, monitors, registration area and registration equipment, concessions area point of sale equipment, storage and shelving area, public address system, central sound system, computer server and WiFi systems, window treatments, bath house maintenance equipment (such as floor and sanitizing equipment), miscellaneous furnishings, concession equipment, tables and umbrellas, trash cans, shade structures, deck safety signage, first responder equipment and more.
• $685,000 for technical design and construction management.
The price for the Legion Park aquatic facility does not include annual operating costs, which are expected to run around $400,000 per year to maintain and run the pool.
That includes training and wages (for a manager, concessions manager, lead instructor, plus assorted concessions workers, water safety instruction, lifeguards and attendants, as well as landscape and maintenance upkeep); water, sewer and sanitary sewer; electricity and gas, trash removal, pool chemicals, and other expenses.
The daily cost to maintain and operate Legion Park pool is expected to be about $4,709 per operational day.
The pool operates about 90 days per year.
What’s up with VFW?
Although demolition of the old pool at VFW Park took a bit longer than anticipated, it’s almost done.
When crews started on the walls of the old pool, they found the walls to be 20 inches thick of solid concrete, said Marty Kosobucki, director of De Pere’s Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department.
“They (the excavation company) had a wrecking ball the size of a VW Beetle that kept bouncing off the walls of the pool,” Kosobucki told park commissioners at the board’s July 18 meeting.
The City of De Pere will begin interviewing firms early next month to determine who will do technical design and administer construction management for the VFW aquatic facility, Kosobucki said.
Requests for proposals went out last month.
The park commissioners selected fellow commissioner and District 3 Alderman Dean Raasch to serve as the representative on the interview committee.
An update on the progress of the applicant winnowing process will likely be available by the next park commissioners meeting Aug. 15.