Construction on a new pool in Albany's Lincoln Park has begun.
Lincoln Park was established as Albany's first public playground in 1900. Its centerpiece swimming pool opened July 4th, 1931. The pool leaked since the day it was built, and in its last decade of operation was losing up to 500,000 gallons of water a day. It was also rife with drainage and filtration issues.
The city took the first steps to re-imagine the pool in September 2018, followed by several public sessions and community meetings.
In December, officials including Mayor Kathy Sheehan braved a light winter rain as they wielded golden sledgehammers and pounded away at curbing surrounding the old pool.
On Wednesday Sheehan and the officials were back at the park, this time joined by a group of Albany schoolchildren and a set of golden shovels for a ceremonial groundbreaking of a project Sheehan says will be funded through grants.
"We propose to borrow a combined $20 million to ensure the pool will be built," Sheehan said. "We came out here and demolished the pool. And now because of all that work, we're here to launch the next phase of this historic transformational project breaking ground on the new Lincoln Park, our general contractor Jersen construction is in the process of installing more than 250 micropiles in it around the footprint of the pool and around the bathhouse. These are long metal tubes that are going to help to create a really firm structure for us to build the pool on."
While the new pool will be situated where the old one used to be, Department of Recreation Commissioner Jonathan Jones notes there will actually be three separate pools.
"Not only will this have an Olympic sized pool, so once our young people learn how to swim, they can swim freely, will have a zero entry pool while they're learning. We'll also have a spray pad for our little ones and for folks like me who just want to get wet and watch their children as they swim," Jones said.
The pool area will consist of a 10,000-square foot walk-in pool (no stairs or ladders). It also will include a 10-lane lap pool, a splash pad, a water slide and half-sized Olympic lap pool. The historic 1930s-era bathhouse next to the pool is undergoing renovation and will be outfitted with new lockers, showers and restrooms.
Sheehan says, in time Lincoln Park and its pool will be a source of community pride.
"There's a lot that's going to be happening. It's going to take a while," Sheehan said. "It's not going to be opened this summer. But our goal is to have a new Lincoln Park pool open by July 4th, 2025. What do you guys say to that?" (Children cheer.)
