A major overhaul of a 45-year-old borough-owned pool in North Pole could start this summer should the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly sign off on final fund appropriations Thursday night.
Ordinance 2022-20-1V, sponsored by Borough Mayor Bryce Ward, seeks to appropriate $5.7 million for the rehabilitation of the Wescott Memorial Pool in North Pole. The ordinance also consolidates three projects into a single item in an effort to reduce costs.
The ordinance will be up for a public hearing Thursday. The assembly meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the Mona Lisa Drexler Assembly Chambers at the Juanita Helms Administration Center, 907 Terminal St. Public hearings will start after 7 p.m.
“This would be a complete revitalization of the Wescott pool with the intention of adding at least 20 years of life to it,” Ward said during a media availability conference Tuesday.
The borough parks and recreation facility operates three pools: North Pole’s Wescott, Hamme Pool on Airport Way and Mary Siah Pool on 14th Avenue.
About $5.25 million would come from the Capital Improvement Program (CIP), another $300,000 from a separate account to repair the pool’s water slide and $150,000 from the facility’s roof repair project.
Overall, the borough estimates the project will cost $11.7 million to complete. Half the funding was already appropriated in the CIP.
“This is a pretty big project,” Ward said.
Proposed work includes a complete locker room renovation, deck drain replacement, upgraded mechanical and electrical system, roof and water replacement.
“The groundwater level is actually higher than the level of the pool,” Public Works Director David Bredlie said at a recent borough assembly finance committee. “If we want to empty the pool to do maintenance, the groundwater exerts a buoyancy on the pool and bad things happen.”
The pool includes a de-watering hole that allows water to be pumped out to offset the effects. The drained water used to be discharged into a nearby slough but was deemed no longer acceptable.
Injection wells were installed as an alternative and redistributed the water into the groundwater basin.
The project will also add natural gas connection to the facility, which the borough could potentially extend to the nearby North Pole Middle School.
Bredlie added both the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent Mary Siah Pool renovation demonstrated the increased cost for construction projects.
Ward said the appropriations will push other capital projects back by a few years.
“We are certainly not eager about the delay of those projects, but it does allow us to move forward with this project for this construction season,” Ward said. “The goal is to get it finished before we have to start work on any of our other facilities.”
Bredlie told the borough finance committee last week that the ordinance will appropriate a $1 million future CIP project.
Contact reporter Jack Barnwell at 907-459-7587 or jbarnwell@newsminer.com.
