When the city of Janesville’s brand-new Palmer Park pool officially opens June 7, it will usher in new swimming opportunities on the city’s east side — including nighttime swims.
City Recreation Division Director Shelley Slapak showed off the new, $3.4-million Palmer Park pool complex this week in a tour.
The city recreation chief says the new pool allows room for almost 350 swimmers — brisk business at the hybrid, zero-depth entry pool.
Slapak showed the pool’s features. On the shallow end, it includes a water table, a set of slides and a giant, elevated water bucket that tips over and delivers a gusher onto the heads of little ones as they play in the pool’s wading area.
The zero-depth pool gives way to regulation swimming lanes for lap swim and water walking. That section’s ropes can be pulled to make way for afternoon crowds to free swim in the deeper part of the pool.
Slapak says the pool will have flexible use for different age groups. The pool is lighted, which Slapak says will allow for nighttime swims on some nights of the week.
The new aquatic facility’s pool house has an inside concession window and a concession window facing Palmer Park, allowing both pool patrons and park goers to grab a snack. The pool is below a hillside on the park’s west side.
Inside the fenced-in aquatics facility, builders have landscaped a mini grass hillside where pool patrons can sit and sunbathe. For those into shade, the new facility has a half a dozen giant umbrellas.
Slapak told the city’s parks and recreation committee this week the new pool could easily see 20,000 visitors this summer, making it at least as busy as the Rockport pool on the west side.
Slapak told the parks committee the city has retained 90 percent of its lifeguard staff from last year. She says that’s a good sign, considering Palmer’s new pool will require up to four lifeguards on duty, depending on its daily use.
Slapak says she believes the Palmer pool’s entry fee will remain locked in at $5, and she indicated family passes for the summer would run about $120, which she says is not a cost increase compared to the city’s past pool fees.
The new pool replaces the aging, former Palmer Park wading pool, which has been removed from the east side of the park. That area now has new grass planted, making the old wading pool just a memory.
Just outside the public entry to the new aquatic facility, the city has memorialized the changes by placing two of the old wading pool’s major features just outside the public entry to the new pool.
Former users of the old Palmer Park wading pool might remember the features — they’re the pair of concrete whales once used as playthings for children at the pool. The city long ago named the two whales “Jane” and “Seville.”
