$750K Needed for New Garden Hills Pool House

Money is currently being raised for a new , which the Garden Hills Pool and Park Association's Pool House Committee Chairman Jeff Clark said has been desperately needed for some time.

Clark explained that problems with freezing pipes in the existing 33-year old pool house led to them bursting and blowing out the walls in multiple locations in April of 2011. 

"We've patched them [the bathrooms] up as best we can," Clark said. "They passed inspection but they are definitely not long term suitable."

The amount of money it would have taken to completely repair the bathrooms ($80,000 - $100,000) caused The Garden Hills Neighborhood Foundation and the Garden Hills Pool and Park Association (GHPPA), which runs the pool for the City of Atlanta, to work toward building a new 4,900 sq. ft. facility at the Garden Hills Pool.

Because of its popularity, another reason a new pool house is needed is for the amount of people that come through the facility on any given day. The traffic has simply outgrown the space available, Clark said. The Garden Hills Pool serves over 500 patrons per day from May to mid-September, including swim team members and at-risk youth swimmers (as part of the City of Atlanta’s summer recreation programs). 

There are only three outdoor public pools north of downtown Atlanta — at Piedmont Park, and Garden Hills, which charges patrons daily entrance fees or membership fees to use.

"It is a very important recreational facility for the city," Clark said. 

After an intensive selection process last Fall, the Garden Hills Pool House Committee, made up of members of four key Garden Hills associations (GHPPA, the Garden Hills Civic Association, Garden Hills Garden Club, and the Garden Hills Neighborhood Foundation), selected a design by the design-build team of Anne Sciarrone Architecture & The Macallan Group. 

The new pool house will offer greatly improved community meeting spaces, concessions, and dining areas; handicapped-accessible and child-friendly bathrooms, plus a publicly-accessible bathroom for the adjacent park; and a temperature-controlled facility, allowing for use of the Garden Hills Pool year-round. 

However, $750,000 is needed to tare down the existing building and rebuild it ADA compliant in a manner that will be able to last at least 50 years and suit the neighborhood, Clark explained.

"The least expensive building is actually the one that we chose," he said. "It (the current pool house) costs $8,000 to $10,000 a year just to keep going. From our perspective it will actually be a cost savings to us to get a new facility that we don't have to spend that much money maintaining."

Rather than raising fees for the pool, which are some of the least expensive in the city for a pool membership, Clark said they chose to engage membership to raise the funds. Now, fourteen weeks into the fundraising, $275,000 has been raised. The goal, Clark said, is to have $500,000 raised by the end of the year.

Donations have poured in from organizations like Park Pride, who donated $100,000 as part of a challenge grant. Clark said pool membership has donated over $100,000 as well and more money has been secured through different foundations and endowments. While the Garden Hills pool is a City of Atlanta facility, the City can only give so much much to the project because of tight budget restraints within the parks department and the number of facilities in need of repair, Clark said.

The pool house has been endorsed by the City of Atlanta Parks Department, the , NPU-B, as well as Park Pride. 

“Park Pride’s support is a significant step towards improving the experience of all Garden Hills Pool patrons, to the benefit of swimmers throughout the City of Atlanta,”said David Kirshtein, President of the GHPPA. “This project has already received tremendous support from the surrounding community, and we hope that Park Pride’s challenge grant will only increase the campaign’s momentum.”

Clark said they hope to be able to raise all of the funds needed before a planned construction start time of around Labor Day, after swimming season ends. If construction starts on time, the pool house could be ready as soon as the beginning of next April. If adequate funds aren't raised, Clark said they would continue their efforts and target new completion date in 2014.

"We are hoping we can raise some funds and make it happen sooner than later," Clark said.

Funds can be donated and kept track of via the Garden Hills Neighborhood Foundation website here.