Cumming Aquatic Center Bubbling With Upcoming Summer Fun

The Cumming Aquatic Center is shaping into one impressive swimming facility.

During Tuesday's city council meeting, city officials did not decline to set an official opening date. But Greg Little, Director of Parks and Recreation, told the council the facility should be completed by the first week in June while lifeguards under go two weeks of training in the same pool where they will work.

Additionally, the building inspection phase is underway and city employees are also going through the punch list with contractors.

These are just some of the items that need to be taken care of before an opening date is officially announced, according to the City of Cumming.

"As soon as we can get a firm date on the total facility being turned over to the city, that is when we can put together an open date," said Gerald Blackburn, Cumming City Administrator. "We are in the process of doing the training that we have to do with the employees and all of our personnel."

Blackburn points out they are looking at the possibility of opening the water park for six hours, two or three days ahead of the rest of the facility.

"Now that's not firm, by any means, but that is something that we're looking at  doing," he said.

The water park consists of three sections, the play structure, the lazy river and the 156 foot water slide.

"We've got the lazy river in the middle, when the jets are running it flows the water through so you can have a leisurely trip through the pool," said Little.

Brad Mallon, with Water Technology, designed the water park with suggestions from city consultant Bob McAllister and the city.

"We sort of gave them some ideas of what we wanted to include, what features," said Little. "We feel he (Brad Mallon) put together a great design of everything we wanted into it and connecting it together and making an outdoor water park for us, we're excited."

The 50,000 square foot center, includes two indoor pools, one of which is a 10-lane, Olympic-sized 50-meter competition pool with three diving boards for competition practice only and not available to the public.

There is permanent seating for 750 spectators and temporary seating for an additional 300. Permanent seating is on the second level and every seat has an excellent view of the pool.

"We're even equipped for water polo nets," said Little. "The equipment is available for groups coming in and running tournaments--I don't foresee us offering our own league or anything. We've actually already had some interest from groups wanting to run a tournament or two."

The second indoor pool is a therapeutic pool with four lanes that is wheelchair accessible. There also is a spacious dressing area with lockers.

"It's a large facility and it's a product that we're very proud of as the City of Cumming, we're thankful that they (the community) are excited about it," said Blackburn. "We are so excited about getting it open, having it right and letting everybody's experience be just the ultimate for them."

In our recent interview with Greg Little--some of your questions and statements posted on Cumming Patch (see here) have been addressed about the facility.

Neil Stapley stated: ...it would have been nice to have a family annual pass.

Greg Little: In discussing this with some of the other facilities, and that's not necessarily something we won't offer in the future, but it just was not a topic priority. The number of family annual passes that they (other facilities) sell--just weren't that many--we've not ruled out having a year-round family pass we've just have not initiated it yet. We want to see what the response is.

Penny asked: Will the center be holding swim classes and will birthday parties be allowed there?

Greg Little: We have the cabanas out here...we'll have picnic tables underneath them. If people want to celebrate a birthday and rent one of the cabanas, that's fine. We will not be conducting birthday parties, per se. We've had people call us up  wanting to know if that would be one of our programs that we would run and host, we will not be doing that, at least not initially. But certainly groups, baseball teams, softball teams, birthday parties--if they want to come here and enjoy our facility, we welcome them.

Juanita Mask asked: Will you offer swimming lessons or exercise classes? One thing we're particularly interested in is day time classes for home school students during the school year.

Greg Little: We will be doing programming, right now what we will have immediately will be swim lessons, just because summer is coming, and we live so close to Lake Lanier and a lot of families want their kids to learn how to swim, so with having a year-round facility we will have classes that will go on throughout the year. What we're trying to do is develop a program that will fit as many of the needs as we can. Some people want classes in the morning, some people want classes in the afternoon. We do realize we have a huge home school contingent here in Forsyth County and we're looking into the possibility. We have not established any water exercise classes yet, we are just trying to get the facility open and especially get the outdoor facility open in time to get as much summer out of it as we can.

Mary Jean Costello asked: Were any grants awarded to the city of Cumming for the construction of this phenomenal pool?

Greg Little: No, there were no grants. This was SPLOST money and county money.

Angela Gresham asked: Will there be daycare times?

Greg Little: There is no daycare facility, she may be talking about would we be available for day cares to bring groups of kids up here. But if that is what she means--we have had some initial interest and it's definitely something we will be looking at. We would like to see what our crowds are and get our staff into the flow and routine of what to expect everyday.

Kristen asked: What is the reasoning on not offering memberships?

Greg Little: We don't want you to be a member to have to come here. The passes are the same purpose--if you plan on coming here as a family or as an individual--that's why we're selling passes. There's not going to be a membership. I guess it's just terminology--you can call a pass a three-month membership or you can call it an individual membership. We just wanted to avoid the perception that you have to be a member to come here. We're open for the public, we make no distinction between City of Cumming residents, county residents, people from outside the county. So there's not a membership which sort of conatates a privilege, we want everybody to enjoy.

Schedule and Fees -

The outdoor leisure pool will be open:

Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The competition pool will be open:

Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Hours for the therapeutic pool will be:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Tuesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

"Tickets will not go on sale until a week before the facility opens," Little said.

Daily admission fees will range between $2 and $5. Children under 2 get in free. Monthly Passes will also be available ranging between $25 and $40. Annual passes will cost $150 to $225. Family passes are available with the price based on the number of family members.

Bill Johnson contributed to this story.