Green Street Pool slated for demolition later this month

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville's historic Green Street swimming pool becomes a memory later this month when demolition crews take it apart and replace it with a grassy landscape.

Barclay Fouts with the City's Public Utilities Engineering and Construction Construction Division presented City Council this week with a request for the contract award for Phase 1 of major park renovations to Wessell Park and the demolition of the Green Street Pool, which opened in 1930.

"Green Street Pool demolition will be the demolition of the main pool, the wading pool, the concrete decking and piping," Fouts told council members at their Thursday work session. "The next step would be the back fill of the pool. We'll have a good bit of dirt left over from the grading of Wessell Park; that dirt is going to be exported over to the Green Street pool site and used as back fill. The contractor will then will make up the remainder of the dirt and it will be stabilized."

Fouts said the pool house and upper retaining walls will remain but the pools will be backfilled, graded level and grassed. The development and opening of the Frances Meadows Aquatic and Community Center with its pool complex made the Green Street Pool obsolete and City Council determined it could not afford to keep the neighborhood pool open and make extensive repairs, despite pleas from nearby homeowners and those who had used the pool for years. Councilman George Wangeman remarked that he still gets requests to keep Green Street Pool open.

At Wessell Park the old basketball and tennis courts are slated for removal as well as lowering the court grade and installation of a modular block wall. Phase 2 includes installation of new courts and fencing under a separate Parks and Recreation contract.

Total project cost adds up to $206,530 with contingency and engineering services. The project's low bid at $183,530 came from Simpson Trucking and Grading,Inc. Project funding is from impact fees collected for Parks and Recreation, amounting to $175,000 plus a Parks and Recreation Board authorization for $31,530.