Design contract for swim center overhaul addressing accessibility, staff needs approved

The Palm Springs City Council approved a design contract Wednesday evening for a comprehensive renovation of the city’s swim center that will transform a project initially focused on locker room updates into a $6 million to $7 million overhaul addressing accessibility, staff workspace, and community needs.

The council approved a task order with IDC for design services that will cost approximately 12% of the total project cost, or more than $700,000, to create construction-level documents for the renovation.

The item was pulled from the consent agenda for discussion after some residents questioned the proposal.

One of those residents, Jeff Nelson, a retired engineering firm principal and longtime swim center user, submitted a letter urging the council to reject the proposal, calling it “an excessive cost for a project which has already seen 2.5 years of design fees with little to show for it.”

Nelson argued the city should instead demolish the existing structure and build a new facility rather than attempting to salvage and renovate the current building.

The project originated in 2021 with community-initiated requests through Measure J funding for locker room renovations but expanded significantly after city staff and community members identified broader facility needs.

“It started as a fairly small project, the renovation of the locker rooms with, actually with Measure J community initiated projects, and it started growing into different requests to do different upgrades,” City Engineer Joel Montalvo told councilmembers during their regular meeting. “Overall, we thought that we should combine all these small, little project requests into one big project,”

The renovation will add office space for lifeguards and staff, construct brand new locker rooms including all-gender facilities, and significantly improve accessibility throughout the facility.

Currently, wheelchair users must navigate through the lifeguard office and men’s locker room to reach the pool deck, a problem the new design will eliminate.

“For someone in a wheelchair, you need to go through the lifeguard office, into the men’s locker room, and then come out of that space to access the pool deck,” said Nick Gonzalez, director of Parks and Recreation. “This will allow for increased access to accessibility throughout the swim center, so that we can get patrons in and out of the facility safely.”

The design will preserve the existing structure, which was created by a known architect, while adding new components including office space and an updated roof structure.

When questioned whether the design costs were appropriate for a project of this size, Montalvo confirmed the percentage was standard, explaining that working with an existing structure requires additional testing and analysis.

“(Y)ou need to incorporate the facility’s age,” Montalvo said. “You have to take that into account. …There’s lots of work that goes into an existing structure when you try to renovate it.”

“(P)rojects and ideas kind of really snowball into sometimes really exciting opportunities to really re-envision our community spaces.”

— Mayor Pro Tem Naomi Soto

Mayor Pro Tem Naomi Soto noted the project demonstrates how community input through Measure J can shape major improvements.

“A lot of these initial ideas came in 2021 in the community initiated projects,” Soto said, referring to the scope of the swim center project. “(P)rojects and ideas kind of really snowball into sometimes really exciting opportunities to really re-envision our community spaces.”

The design phase represents years of community meetings and input from swimmers and staff to develop concepts into buildable construction documents.

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