Century High School pool is too short, Rochester Swim Club members say
Feb. 26—There is some disappointment about the design of the swimming pool that's on pace to be added to Century High School in Rochester as part of the districtwide referendum voters approved in November 2019.
Rochester Swim Club members sent an email to current and former members, urging swimmers to contact the school board about what they see as inadequacies in the pool's design.
The school board discussed some of those issues during a recent meeting.
"The school board has been presented a design that is 'sub-par' or 'inadequate,'" reads the letter from the Swim Club. "No obsolete pool like this has been built in Southeast Minnesota for nearly two decades."
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The current design for the pool calls for eight lanes and would be 25 meters long. There would be room for 325 spectators. The addition is planned for the north side of the building, opposite the main entrance.
The Swim Club letter outlined differences between the current plan for the pool and what the club has proposed. Specifically, the letter from the Swim Club says it has been advocating for a "25-yard stretch" pool, which would be "33 feet longer than a conventional pool." It would also have a movable bulkhead, a structure that can be used to divide a pool.
That extra space, the letter said, would be beneficial for numerous reasons. The first listed by the Swim Club is that it would allow swimming on one side of the bulkhead and diving on the other.
The letter also indicated that Swim Club members have not been able to have as much say in the project as they had hoped.
"During the past 18 months, there has not been transparency from the facility/design group and contractors, despite our full efforts to be involved," the letter said.
Autumn Kappes, CEO of the Rochester Swim Club, could not be reached for further comment.
RPS released a statement about the situation, acknowledging that while it took the input of the broader swim community into account, there are financial restrictions to the project.
In fact, the district "paused" the design process at one point because the initial design was prohibitively expensive. According to the district's website, the "initial design for the Century pool" was nearly $15 million, far exceeding the funds set aside for all the pool projects in the district.
"The district met with swim community members early last year. We valued their feedback and considered this in design," the statement from RPS said.
The Rochester School Board discussed some of the objections to the current design of the pool with the officials overseeing the construction of the project during a recent meeting. Like the statement from the district indicated, the scaled-back pool model boiled down to financing.
The addition of a pool in Century High School got the green light when voters approved a $180.9 million bond referendum in 2019. Part of that referendum set aside up to $9.5 million for the construction of the pool at Century, repairs to the pool at Mayo High School, and to fill in the three middle school pools so that the space can be used for other needs.
Dana Hlebichuk, lead construction administrator for the Century project, said the need for a storm shelter was added to the building code in the time since voters approved the referendum, which raised the cost.
In addition to the added costs, Keane McWaters, of Knutson Construction, explained that there is only so much money from the referendum and that it has to be spread among all the pool projects in the district, not just the construction of the Century pool.
"We've been fortunate that we've been able to bring in the new schools under budget to date, and we've been able to shift some dollars to get closer to what the pool community has been requesting," he said. "But, we're not going to be able to get all the way there with the funds that are available to us."
Century High School Pool by inforumdocs on Scribd
