More than 32,000 people visited the city of Albany’s new Lincoln Park Pool this summer. City officials are now looking into ways to keep the public pool financially sustainable.
A year-and-a-half after demolition began in December 2023, an expanded Lincoln Park pool re-opened in early July.
Martin Daly, Albany's Director of Infrastructure Management, says neighbors were thrilled by the reopening.
“People were very excited. I understand waiting in line stinks, but people had that wow factor when they came out the entrance way from the bath house and saw this facility,” Daly said. “It's it to me, it's not a pool, it's a water park. I mean, we have, we have a 19-foot water slide.”
The roughly 72,000 square-foot complex includes a zero-entry pool, a ten-lane lap pool, splash pad, water slides, as well as new restrooms, shade pavilions, and picnic patios.
The $25 million rehabilitation project was supported by federal American Rescue Plan Act funding and state funding.
And there’s still more work to be done. Daly says the city is exploring ways to make the facility more accessible.
“Because of the geography of the park, it tends to be kind of difficult, and tends to be a little bit isolated from the neighborhoods that surround it,” Daly said.
Restricted to city residents in 2025, city officials want to expand pool access to everyone next year.
Jonathan Jones is the Commissioner of the city’s Department of Recreations, Youth and Workforce Services. While the pool is free for city residents, he says Albany is exploring a potential pool entry fee for out-of-towners.
“We are looking at revenue generating model that will include nonresidents. We're still working through that through the mayor's office and with the Common Council, will do that through the budget process, and we'll have enough time to educate our constituency on the process,” Jones said. “But we also realize that while we had it open this year for free for our residents, there's so much more potential and there's so much more cost recovery that we're going to need in order to sustain such a project.”
Jones says there's a lot of community demand for swimming lessons, for both kids and adults.
Outgoing Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan says she hopes the pool, which originally opened in 1930, can serve as a unique attraction for the next 100 years.
“This was a hard project. There were people who wanted us to rebuild a round pool exactly like the old pool that was there. There were others who said, ‘no, we want something new," Sheehan said. "We want something that feels like a resort, we want something that feels like a water park.’ And so being able to manage through that and get to that resolution is something that I am very proud we were able to accomplish."
Phase two of the Lincoln Park Pool's transformation is ongoing. Locker rooms are being updated and accessibility tools like hand railings are being installed.
Other park city park improvements underway in Albany include a new playground in Washington Park and a $20 million community center constructed in West Hill. Both are slated to be finished by the end of this year.
