The Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday will consider approving one of three concepts — each with its own price tag, and two of them well above budget — for a renovation of the Outdoor Aquatic Center.
The city has been planning a roughly $6 million renovation of the center, at 727 Kentucky St., and seeking public feedback on various iterations over the past few months.
City staff members and representatives of SFS Architecture, Waters Edge and Vireo, have boiled that feedback into three final concepts — two of which are more than $1 million over the budget set aside for the project.
Update:
• Lawrence City Commission approve in-budget concept for Outdoor Aquatic Center, Aug. 13, 2024
The current surface area of the pool has about 19,000 square feet, according to the agenda. Each of the three concepts adds new features, including a lazy river, a leisure pool and a splash pad, but those take away from the existing pool space.
The first preferred concept is within the allotted budget, but it would have about 3,000 square feet less water recreation space than the current pool, according to the agenda.
The second concept would add $1.2 million in additional cost but would include 1,500 more square feet of water recreation area. And the third would add $2.4 million to the cost, but it would significantly expand the length of the lazy river and match the amount of water recreation area that the current pool has.
Here’s the current pool:
Here are the three renderings of the concepts in the commission’s agenda.
Use the arrows or dots to slide through the images to see how the concepts compare to each other:
Here’s how the concepts break down, and the cost of each, according to the info in the meeting agenda:
| Feature | Concept 1 | Concept 2 | Concept 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lap pool | 7,600 SF | 7,900 SF | 7,900 SF |
| Leisure pool | 4,800 SF | 5,300 SF | 6,800 SF |
| Plunge pool | 1,300 SF | 1,300 SF | 1,300 SF |
| Splash pad | 2,300 SF | 3,000 SF | 3,000 SF |
| Total water recreation area | 16,000 SF | 17,500 SF | 19,000 SF |
| Lazy river length | 196 LF | 196 LF | 434 LF |
| Cost | $6.1M (within budget) | $7.32M ($1.2M over) | $8.5M ($2.4M over) |
The Lawrence City Commission will meet at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13 at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. See the complete meeting agenda at this link. See the complete presentation on the pool renovation options at this link.
Meetings are open to the public and livestreamed on the city’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/@lawrenceksvideo.
The commission accepts written public comment until noon the day of the meeting emailed to ccagendas@lawrenceks.org. The commission also hears public comment in person during meetings as well as via Zoom. Register for Tuesday’s Zoom meeting at this link.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
