Dublin’s Future Competitive Pool
Dublin will have a new deep-water competitive pool by the summer of 2012. The competitive pool will be over 6,000 sq. ft. with a supporting facility of between 3,000 and 4,000 sq. ft.
The only question is whether the planned pool and facility will be located at Emerald Glen Park or at the Dublin Swim Center (adjacent to Dublin High School). The Dublin City Council asked the Parks and Community Services department to evaluate the pros and cons of this proposed relocation in terms of usability and cost factors. The bottom line is that moving the pool to the Dublin Swim Center would cost an additional $1.4M.
The major upside to relocating the competitive pool is the tremendous benefit to the Dublin High School swim program. The potential downside to having the competitive pool at the Swim Center is that there would be a lack of parking with the current parking arrangement at Dublin High. If the Swim Center could obtain an additional 50 dedicated parking spaces, then the competitive pool could accommodate most events – regardless of the parking required by students during the day and the future Performance Arts Center during the evening.
The upside to having the competitive pool at Emerald Glen Park is that Dublin could host larger, more prestigious, swim meets given the ample supply of parking. Additionally, the City could also leverage the support facilities that will be built as part of the Emerald Glen Park Aquatic Center in the summer of 2012.
As noted, moving the competitive pool to the Dublin Swim Center would cost an additional $1.4M – an additional cost that could not be covered by future impact fees. The Dublin Unified School District has expressed an interest in partnering with the City of Dublin to build the pool at the Dublin Swim Center – but no specific financing arrangement has been discussed as of the time of this post.
The Parks Commission provided unanimous support to keep the planned competitive pool at Emerald Glen. The Dublin City Council will most likely be voting on the proposed relocation on February 19th. Please plan to attend this City Council meeting if you’d like to voice your opinion on the proposed relocation.
