Correction appended.
Council members are hoping the city's new pool will bring in more visitors, but those swimmers might have a little less elbow room.
At a presentation at Monday night's council meeting, consultants in charge of building the new pool told council members the facility will have less total water volume than the old pool.
Tim Schmalenberger, principal landscape architect of MKSK, the landscaping company that is working with the consultants to assist in the building of the pool, said the new pool will be built in consideration of various age groups and allow for increased business despite the lower volume of water.
“It is (a) smaller (amount of) water than you have now," he said. "It is designed for the age groups that you have.”
The new pool will consist of an eight-lane lap pool, a “zero entry” pool which has no stairs but rather a gradual slope leading to deeper water, a “tot” pool for young children, a slide and a splash pad.
Council is debating the placement of the pool at the city recreation center. One of the proposed configurations would be built in the green area behind the recreation center, and the other would be built over the existing pool.
Kirk Greenfield, an Athens resident and meteorologist for WTAP in Parkersburg, raised concerns over the new site being built in a flood zone.
"It's not a question of if it will flood, it's when it will flood," Greenfield said.
Keith Hall, architect with MSA Consultants, the firm in charge of designing and building the pool, said moving to the new site would cost about $500,000 more than it would to build over the existing pool because the contractors would have to use specific landscaping techniques to prevent flooding.
In addition, council members heard from Paige Alost, executive director of the Athens County Visitors Bureau, about the city’s 2015 tourism report. According to Alost’s report, visitors generated nearly $154 million dollars in business revenue in 2015, a 10.3 percent increase from 2013.
Council members also debated what will happen to West Union Street once construction is completed. Mayor Steve Patterson said sidewalks will nearly double in width, bumping the price of the sidewalk and street improvements to nearly $160,000 dollars.
Councilwoman Jennifer Cochran, D-At Large, noted that figure was about double the original estimate for the improvements and questioned whether taxpayers would be receptive to the change.
Council also passed several ordinances on Monday night.
Those ordinances included a measure issuing $473,411 in bonds to pay for a new fire pump truck for the city, issuing $7.3 million in bonds for the building of the city’s pool, and replacing pavement on State Route 33.
All of the ordinances passed.
Correction: Kirk Greenfield was misquoted in a previous version of this article. The article has been updated to show the most accurate information.
