Palm Springs residents welcome swim center renovation plans at community meeting ⋆ The Palm Springs Post

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*Architect Maria Song addresses community members Thursday at a meeting to discuss plans to improve the city’s swim center.*

Palm Springs residents got their first glimpse Thursday evening of proposed designs for a renovation of the city’s swim center at Sunrise Park, with plans focusing heavily on accessibility and shade to address long-standing problems at the aging facility.

About 30 people attended the public meeting at Palm Springs Pavilion, where architect Maria Song from Interactive Design Corporation presented detailed renderings of the renovation project that has been in development for more than a year. The project aims to solve major accessibility issues while adding desperately needed shade structures over locker rooms and bathroom facilities.

“The major problem we were trying to solve was accessibility,” Song said when asked about the project’s primary goals. “There is not proper access for somebody in a wheelchair.”

The renovation will create three distinct access points to the facility, including a new handicap-accessible entrance from the main pavilion and an emergency egress. The design eliminates the need for users to navigate multiple levels by establishing what Song called “an equal platform for everybody to access the staff, to access the women’s, the men’s, and the non-gender restrooms.”

The renovation will keep the swim center open during construction, which is expected to take between six months and a year and a half. Temporary shower facilities will be provided similar to arrangements made during COVID-19 closures.

Residents responded positively to the plans, asking detailed questions about everything from shower temperature controls to solar panel installation. Several attendees praised the practical improvements, particularly the addition of shade structures that will provide relief from extreme desert temperatures.

“Instead of having those stove burner toilets, is there going to be something more reasonable?” asked one resident, referring to the current metal fixtures that become uncomfortably hot in direct sunlight.

Song confirmed that the new shade structures will significantly improve conditions.

“The shade over the locker room storage, as well as the bathroom partition, shower partition, the flooring, everything that is shaded would obviously last longer than when it is directly exposed to the weather,” she added.

The city has allocated $7 million for the project through a bond measure that also covers a major library renovation, but Song expects the actual cost to be significantly less.

“I was clearly instructed not to use $7 million,” she joked, adding that currently the budget is less than $4 million but that the higher allocation accounts for potential cost increases by the time the project goes to bid.

Parks and Recreation Director Nicholas Gonzalez said the city is being “cautiously optimistic about the cost for the project” because any leftover funds could allow for additional improvements at the facility. It’s estimated that replacing aging pool equipment, pumps and filtration systems would require an extra $3 million..

“This is a larger deferred maintenance project to replace all the pool equipment in the pump room, to do replastering of the pool deck itself, of the pool itself,” Gonzalez said. He added that if equipment fails before the deferred maintenance project is funded, “we’ll just keep putting Band-Aids on there to try to make sure that we stay open as much as we possibly can.”

*An overview of changes to a portion of the city’s swim center.*

Tom Dolle, who has been active in campaigning for changes throughout Sunrise Park, offered perhaps the most pointed commentary on the project’s scope and the city’s broader infrastructure needs.

“I just want to say thank you to Maria. You took on a project that I wish we could have thrown $15 million or $20 million at …” Dolle said. “I think everyone has to realize this is one piece of probably 50 projects that need to happen in Sunrise Park, and I hope we don’t have to wait 50 years for the rest of the things we need.”

Dolle encouraged residents to advocate with Palm Springs City Council members for additional park funding, saying “you as citizens can encourage them. This is what we want and what we need.”

Song said the design team will next conduct site surveys to determine existing foundation depths and utility locations before the project goes to the city council for approval in the coming weeks.