A Grand Plan For Improvements, Changes to Columbia's Pools

There are the Columbia pools that are flooded with swimmers each year, and then there are the pools that have been on the shallow end of activity for several years.

Columbia Association officials are diving into figuring out how to bring more people to the less-used pools while taking some of the burden off its most popular facilities.

The organization held two workshops this week as part of its “aquatics master plan process,” which is intended to help decide what improvements to make to its numerous swimming sites – 23 outdoor pools, four indoor swimming pools and one hot-water therapy pool.

Some sites are barely used. The pool in the Oakland Mills neighborhood of Talbott Springs, for example, has averaged just 58 people a day in the past five years, and just 29 people a day when not counting classes, lessons and swim team participants.

Jane Dembner, CA’s director of community planning, said the organization doesn’t intend to close the least-used pools.

“The study is about trying to reinforce the value of our pools and how we can improve them to make them more popular,” Dembner said. “For instance, in Swansfield, we made a major investment in there [turning it into a mini-water park], and we saw the attendance soar. Also, the idea is to take some of the pressure off another pool, like River Hill.”

In 2010, the outdoor pools had 31,450 people visit a total of 517,000 times. The five most popular pools are:

• River Hill, which averaged 56,995 total visits a year in the past five years, or 570 people a day. “Regular attendance” – which excludes people there for lessons, classes and swim team – averaged 46,144 visits a year, or 461 a day.
• Dorsey Hall in Dorsey’s Search, which averaged 39,682 visits a year, or 397 a day. Regular attendance averaged 32,155 a year, or 322 a day.
• Hopewell in Owen Brown, which averaged 35,412 visits a year, or 354 a day. Regular attendance averaged 30,738 a year, or 307 a day.
• Swansfield in Harper’s Choice, which averaged 33,968 visits a year, or 340 a day. Regular attendance averaged 27,866 a year, or 279 a day.
• Hawthorn in Hickory Ridge, which averaged 33,079 visits a year, or 331 a day. Regular attendance averaged 28,044 a year, or 280 a day.

Those five pools account for 37 percent of the outdoor pools’ total visitors and 45 percent of the regular attendance.

Hopewell and Swansfield were both turned into mini-water parks. River Hill and Dorsey Hall are among the newer facilities. And Hawthorn has a snack bar and other features that entice visitors, Dembner said.

Hawthorn pool also had an estimated 4,921 people living within a half-mile radius in 2010 – the fourth-most populated of the 23 outdoor pools. While River Hill only has 1,483 residents within that radius (the 20th-most) and Dorsey Hall has 2,472 residents within that distance (the 14th-most), they are also the only pools for their respective villages.

The six least popular pools are:

• Running Brook in Wilde Lake, which averaged 12,790 total visits a year for the past five years, or 128 a day. Regular attendance averaged 6,015 a year, or 60 a day.
• Jeffers Hill in Long Reach, which averaged 12,705 visits a year, or 127 people a day. Regular attendance averaged 5,479 a year, or 55 a day.
• Bryant Woods in Wilde Lake, which averaged 11,447 visits a year, or 114 a day. Regular attendance averaged 5,928 a year, or 59 a day.
• Locust Park in Long Reach, which averaged 10,603 visits a year, or 106 a day. Regular attendance averaged 6,498 a year, or 65 a day.
• Faulkner Ridge in Wilde Lake, which averaged 10,381 visits a year, or 104 a day. Regular attendance averaged 4,442 a year, or 44 a day.
• Talbott Springs in Oakland Mills, which averaged 5,817 visits a year, or 58 a day. Regular attendance averaged 2,898 a year, or 29 a day.

Those six pools account for just 12 percent of the outdoor pools’ total attendance and less than 9 percent of the regular attendance.

Dembner pointed out that a majority of people who swim in Columbia don’t swim at their neighborhood pool.

That might help explain some of the least-used pools. Faulkner Ridge had 4,839 people living within a half-mile radius (the fifth–most), Running Brook had 4,774 people in that radius (the seventh–most), and Talbott Springs had 4,264 people within that distance (the eighth–most).

Some of those half-mile areas overlap with those of another pool's territory, and many Columbia residents live within one mile of several other neighborhoods’ pools.

“We aren’t exactly sure why some of these pools are poorly attended,” Dembner said. “People that go to the popular pools go more frequently to them. And some of the less popular pools, the people that go there don’t swim as often.”

Those in attendance at Wednesday’s master plan workshop – a mixture of swimmers and Columbia Association staff – offered numerous suggestions on how to improve the pools.

Those suggestions included:

• making pools more kid-friendly in neighborhoods with more children
• creating heated pools
• adding food vendors
• getting cleaner locker rooms and bathrooms
• having more availability for people to swim laps
• increasing the number of play areas for activities such as volleyball or horseshoes
• having a 50-meter pool

While most of the attention went to the outdoor pools, the master plan process will also include discussions of what improvements or changes to make to the indoor pools.

Columbia Association officials plan for there to be more workshops, as well as focus groups and interviews with various stakeholders. A final draft of the master plan should go to the Columbia Association board by the end of the year.

“Our facilities are aging, so it’s really time to assess how we’re going to reinvest in them,” Dembner said. “The plan is a 10- to 20-year horizon. We built it over 40 years, and we’ve got to improve over the next many.”