Revamped Rotary Pool reopening
The Rotary Pool opens today four days after the city’s other municipal pools, but it will seem like a brand-new swimming hole.
The 1970s-era pool, near Fairgrounds Elementary School on Cleveland Street, was in desperate need of re-surfacing because of cracks and other structural problems but was so unlevel, pool companies refused to do the work, according to Nick Caggiano, superintendent of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
Eventually, though, employees found Natare Corp. in Indiana to install what is essentially a new pool liner made of very thick, milled rubber, Caggiano said. The city also replaced the pool’s 10 skimmers – the little drains with flappers inside the pool – and re-poured seven concrete pads around the pool.
“It looks beautiful,” Caggiano said. “It looks like a brand-new pool. If you saw the befores and afters, you would say ‘holy cow.’?”
The project cost about $47,000 and took about a month. The other options were closing the pool or spending as much as $500,000 to replace it, Caggiano said.
– JOSEPH G. COTE