As if it never were - the Shoreline Pool site
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
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| Photo by Gidget Terpstra |
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Shoreline had a public pool. It was old, small, and lacked a diving well, hot pools, and other amenities, but it was in constant use.
Generations of local kids learned to swim there and some continued on to get their Red Cross certification. Swim and dive teams - boys and girls - from our high schools used the pool as their training area.
Kayak classes were held in the evening. Special needs kids were able to have water time in a heated, indoor space.
The land is owned by the Shoreline School District, which has no immediate plans for it. The pool was owned by the City of Shoreline, which arranged for the demolition and restoration of the site. Now that the grass has grown, a new resident would never know that a pool had been there.
The City of Shoreline has grant money and would love to put in a picnic shelter, which would open the adjacent Shoreline Park to community events.
As for the pool, there are plans in the works. Garrett Oppenheim, Assistant to the City Manager of Kenmore, is in charge of plans for a regional aquatic center.
I am happy to report that the City of Kenmore received two $100,000 grants from King County to perform aquatic center feasibility studies. We have partnered with the cities of Lake Forest Park and Shoreline for one study and with the city of Kirkland for the other.Our four cities are working together to prepare an RFP to issue in late January or early February and expect to select a consultant in March with their work to be completed in November.
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6 comments:
so here's an idea. lose the grass - The City of Shoreline will pay up to $2k to plant a rain garden with native plants. hey City Council - ever herd of cognitive dissonance?
Where will the regional pool being planned be located?
Once we were a community who valued building things that last and who maintained these amenities for the public good. The old Shoreline Pool was part of the Forward Thrust initiative of 1968. It was a solid pool that served both the swim team and the broader community well, while not being fancy.
The Shoreline City Council of the past few years have lost touch with maintaining public amenities that others built. They put all their eggs into the basket of a large new recreational facility on Midvale, next to the shiny new City Hall and Police Department. Shiny shiny shiny. Everything has to be shiny.
The voters saw the hideous expense of the new proposal and defeated it at the polls. Ok, the Council said, we guess the community doesn't value a public swim facility. So instead of continuing to maintain and improve the facility that we inherited from the previous generation, they chose to bulldoze it. Now people have to go all the way to Lynnwood if they want to swim.
There's a distinct lack of rigor to our City Council elections that has led us to where we are today. Well-connected activists find their way to these offices, to the community's detriment. Expect more performative regulations in future years, more blockbuster vanity projects, more empty lip service to developing Aurora as a commercial district, and less of the quiet competence that makes good government. What happened with Shoreline Pool should be a wakeup call, but I'm pessimistic that it will be to most.
Anonymous 9:10 A location has not been identified. The process is just beginning.
re: Anon 11 3:22 - I totally agree. I fear for my water district
Why didn't the City of Shoreline buy the old pool property from the school district plus the western of portion of Mountain Playground, and build a new pool and recreation center there? People did want a pool, but lost out because of a lower percent of voter turn out and the add-on for parks. The city and school district could have come to a better agreement than $17,000,000 for the land they purchased on Midvale. The old pool land is just sitting there with a proposal to build picnic shelters. Shelters could be added to Cromwell Park or Ronald Bog Park. Citizens voiced their opinions for over a year about a recreational facility & pool, now there's going to be another feasibility study done to do the same thing, lets waste more money, and get nothing for it. Shoreline needs a new pool, like Lynnwood's for it's community. There is empty property in the old pool location that is centrally located and would work just fine. Come to an agreement and start building our pool!
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