All hands on deck for Columbia Pool replacement

Published 1:23 pm Monday, February 13, 2023

The familiar dome of the Columbia Pool in North Portland has been condemned as structurally unsound. The whole building — the dome with the pool, and the rectangular block stuck on the side that houses the changing rooms and lobby — will be demolished. This is a big deal for people who live in that wedge of Portland squeezed between two rivers. In a wet city, there’s a dire lack of safe places to swim.

Portland Parks and Recreation is trying to decide where to build its replacement. The city of Portland has earmarked $50 million for a new aquatic center to be built in North Portland by 2029.

Since 2022 Parks and Rec and the architects ELS have been conducting bi-monthly meetings for stakeholders, which really means any who shows up is included.

ELS has a track record: it designed a second pool for the swim teams at the University of California, Berkeley. Dana Vollmer Grant is a five-time Olympic gold medal swimmer on the project’s design team. She knows what makes a good pool, for serious swimmers, and as a mom of two, for families. (See sidebar 2) These fun pools can be used for swim lessons too.

“Like using the lazy rivers for current training, to prepare kids on how to get out of currents if they’re taken in one. All these different elements that we can expose kids to, so that when they’re out in nature, they can be better prepared,” Vollmer Grant told Pamplin Media recently.

At the public meeting held at Charles Jordan Community Center on Jan. 24, Vollmer Grant worked the room, along with her colleagues, chatting with Portlanders who had come to share their ideas. As well as the North Portland Aquatic Center Project Advisory Committee, there were 12 tables with at least seven people at each, where the public sat in their winter coats, listening.

The PDF files that hold the sketches for the new aquatic center were blown up on poster boards that ran down either side of the auditorium, and the same information was printed in fat books for the public to look over. Speakers led everyone through the big issues, which this being Portland, was mostly a tango of the big two: budget and equity.

ELS architects asked everyone to rank five sites in north Portland: Columbia Park, Columbia Park Annex, Northgate Park, St. Johns Park, and University Park. (Pier Park in St. Johns was removed from consideration because the site was too small.) They pored over the books, filled in forms, and ranked the sites according to public transport access, low-income resident access, and racial minority access. After two hours, they went home.

Coach

Derrell Wheeler is a nurse at Oregon Health and Science University on weekends but spends his mornings and evenings at various pools coaching the Roosevelt High School swim teams.

Like a lot of people who are good at it, Wheeler sees swimming as a lifelong practice, and fun.

“I’m trying to gear them up for swimming lifelong,” Wheeler told Pamplin Media. “Maybe one or two (kids) every four years might go on for collegiate. But most of them I’m hoping will just keep the skill for the rest of their life.”

Wheeler moved to Portland 20 years ago and when he was getting a Master of Fine Arts at the nearby University of Portland, he was a lifeguard at Columbia Pool. He says Columbia Park is a beloved spot, with large trees, open space, and lots of picnickers, dog walkers and joggers.

“The building was exactly like this back then,” Wheeler said on a walk around the shuttered pool. “The boiler was malfunctioning, they had problems with ground water, the pool cracked when they cleaned it … All the troubles you have with an older facility.” Engineers condemned it in 2021.

He said if they wanted to do this right, Portland would have built a new pool 30 years ago.

“They knew it had to be replaced. There’s never been enough pools,” Wheeler said.

Public schools and private clubs, like the Portland Aquatic Club, need to share facilities too and they are in short supply. Hence swimming practice taking place at 5 a.m. and ending at 10 p.m. Currently 35 to 40 of his 53 Roosevelt students usually show up for four lanes at Dishman, which they share from 7p.m. to 8p.m. with Jefferson High School. “Grant has 9 to 10, which is not great, that’s cutting into family time.”

Wheeler usually has 35 to 40 students but “that’s still kind of a meat grinder.” He doesn’t use a megaphone. “I have a very loud voice, I’ve been coaching high school for five years.”

How do Portland’s pools compare to somewhere like San Diego?

“Terrible. But they have outdoor pools, which are cheaper.”

Seattle then?

“Still not great. East Portland pool, they only have four lanes and 25 yards. If every single one of our parks buildings had a 12 lane, 25-yard pool, which is probably closer to a 35 meter by a 25 yard, that would probably be okay. You could fit a lot of people (competitive swimmers) in 12 lanes.”

Wheeler is on the North Portland Aquatic Center Project Advisory Committee, so even though his specialty is competitive swimming, he understands the equity side.

He makes it clear that this project won’t be a flagship civic pool for the whole city. It’s a parks pool designed for a broad section of the community, from kids to seniors, and from people with special needs to the able bodied.

Wheeler loves the new style aquatic parks (like Mt. Scott) which have beach entry, splash pads and lazy rivers.

“You can use a competitive pool for fun, I did it for my entire childhood. It’s a square box with water, and then you jump in and play.”

Fun pools bring in the really young kids and families. “If you can make it fun at first, you can get them to do the work later. There’s also water safety. We’re a city that sits right between two rivers, and we have lots of people to do that go to the beach and play in the rivers. You have to teach the kids how to swim, and you’ve you got no place to do it.”

Timing

Competitive swimming is a different animal. Wheeler says having a 50 meter by 25-yard (12 lanes) pool would be great because teams could use it for small, local competitions. However, to have large competitions, such as interstate and collegiate, you would need a much bigger footprint.

“We would need a different space, not in North Portland, but a space that has a lot of parking. If you want to have a real, high-level competition, you need space for buses, you need space on the deck for spectators and for the swimmers, you would need storage for timing systems.”

Fifty-fifty

But having a 50-meter pool for practice and for in-city competitions and smaller meets would also be good.

“Dishman is extremely overused right now. PAC is trying to use it, there are three high school teams that have to use it for practice. (We’re) sharing the (Dishman) pool with another high school, because we only get four lanes.”

Years of deferred maintenance and development have led to this state, where Portland has small, aging pools that don’t serve the public. Wheeler thinks a lot of these stresses could be alleviated if North Portland gets a well-designed aquatic center, sited in the right park, where it is accessible to the people who need it most.

“It’s complicated, there’s a lot of moving parts. If you want it done right, and you want to make sure we’re not doing this again in 20 years, you have to take your time and spend your money,” concluded Wheeler.

Lift all voices

It sounds like a local government buzzword, but the process does seem to be inclusive.

L.A. Walker and Sydney Jones were seated together at one of the tables, adding their voices to where the pool should be built and how it should look. They are also on the advisory committee, which means attending more meetings, to set the agenda. They both say they are trying to represent a subset of people, to get more opinions on how to build the aquatic center.

Walker, a sales operations manager, lives several miles away in the West Hills, but he says he would use the facility when it opens.

“Absolutely, I would drive to it. There wouldn’t be anything like this anywhere on the west side. Just from an economic development impact on the environment, it can be positive,” said Walker.

Jones used to be a competitive swimmer, and now lives in Southeast Portland. She trained at Parkrose, and at Mt. Hood Community College for their 50-meter pool, so she admits she would love to see a larger pool built.

She said as public schools have been remodeled, “There’s a lot of prioritization around softball fields, baseball fields, and football stadiums, that kind of thing. But the pools are definitely an afterthought, and there is a pretty big community of swimmers here. I think having a really good pool for that is important.”

Jones added that there needs to be more places for swimming lessons. “I’ve worked with kids and it is impossible to get into lessons with Parks and Rec at this point. There’s such a backlog. And it’s a staffing issue as well.”

While they had opinions about what they wanted to see built, they weren’t trying to influence anyone else in the public.

“We’re just here to give our input and help frame it, to make sure it’s more inclusive,” said Walker. “It’s about making sure as many inputs are getting put into the project ahead of time, instead of saying, ‘Hey, we decided where it’s going to be.’ I feel like this the first time this has been done, to make sure they’re thinking about accessibility, they’re thinking about impact on the environment and the impacts of services for seniors and youth.”

Liquid Xanax

Jenny Eckart Hoyt is on the advisory committee to represent people who have children with disabilities. She lives 30 steps from the Pier Park pool. “We had some issues with that pool and not being included, so my advocacy journey started in 2020,” Hoyt told Pamplin Media.

“That’s when I learned, you have to be in the room. You can’t just show up on opening day at the ribbon cutting and say ‘Wait, my kids can’t use this!’”

She hopes features such as beach entry, lifts, warm water, and even a bench beside the pool could help someone like her six-year-old Winnie, who has multiple disabilities.

Winnie has cerebral palsy, is deaf-blind, non-verbal and uses a wheelchair.

“Winnie needs a caregiver with her to experience the world,” said Eckart Hoyt. “It’s been a journey finding what she loves, and one of them is water. Her little body has lots of pain, but she unfolds in a warm body of water, it’s like liquid Xanax.”They used to go to the soaking pool at the Kennedy School, but it closed for the pandemic for two years.

“For families like me, it’s all about getting to the pool and getting in, all the barriers are outside the pool,” said Eckart Hoyt. For instance, changing tables are sized for infants, but every size up to adults needs a changing table.

Eckart Hoyt crowdsourced her Facebook friends, who include a lot of parents of people with disabilities, for ideas.

“I want to bring ideas that aren’t just specific to my daughter. Like family restrooms. It’s a two-person operation to get my daughter in the pool, but I have to lay her on the cement in the (female-only) restroom to change her. And what if someone is non-binary or transgender? That facility (a family restroom) would serve whole other set of people.”

Eckart Hoyt cited a cartoon where a school janitor is shoveling snow from the steps before doing the wheelchair ramp. A kid in a wheelchair says, “If you shovel the ramp first, we can all get in!”

That’s the perspective she says is often missed: “If you make it accessible, it still serves everyone,” she exclaimed.

Eckart Hoyt has been pleasantly surprised how welcoming everyone has been: “None of my ideas have been shot down. It just seems like everyone really wants this pool to serve as many humans across the spectrum.”

She points out some other basic things that get forgotten by pool designers, or at least people who decide which features to purchase.

“When they can access water in their chair, or on crutches or however a kid accesses, then there’s a possibility of being without a caregiver, or with their peers. When I’m in a pool, Winnie is on me. We love her, but she’s six, she’s in first grade,” said Eckart Hoyt.

She has an non-disabled son, Emmett, who is four, so she and her husband always go to the pool together.

One woman told her “If only there was a bench by the pool, where I could place my son while I dry him off before putting him in his wheelchair, I could go to the pool and not wait until my husband’s off work.” The bench would have to be bowed so the little boy didn’t roll off.

“We’re never going to get those things unless we speak up and mention how helpful those design elements could be,” said Eckart Hoyt, advocating for the advocates.

Gold

Dana Vollmer Grant, Olympic gold medalist and pool designer, went on a tour of pools in Oregon and Washington before the January public meeting, looking for what’s new.

“There’s a bigger emphasis on the fun water pools, they are the moneymakers,” Grant told Pamplin media after the meeting as folks folded tables and put away the books. “They have a big draw and they support the big, flat water pools.” This means two feet of warm water and some slides and floaties can subsidize chilly lap swims.

Like Wheeler, she loves 50-meter pools, but they’re not always appropriate.

“With my Olympic background, it’s wonderful to see more fifties. But you have to look at the full picture of the community and what the community needs. And budget comes into play in that decision. So what programs are you losing if you don’t have a 50? I’m not wanting to take away from the fun water elements, the Learn to Swim elements.”

In the end, building the North Portland Aquatic Center will be a balancing act. Because the pool has to serve the local community first, the city second and the state third, it remains to be seen what will win out.

What’s also special is that Portlanders can still have their say.

Vollmer-Grant revealed that public opinion had indeed narrowed the number of sites down to three by mid February. She wrote to Pampin Media: “The City of Portland is running one of the most in depth, inclusive community engagement processes that I have been a part of. ELS and the City of Portland worked to narrow the sites down to the five sites that were presented to the community. All sites had equal opportunity to become the location, and the decision of the top three sites was fully determined by the community. Now, ELS is working on an aquatic center concept design for each of those three sites that will be presented at the next Community Engagement session, where the community will vote for the final site!”

Future Open House events:

Community Workshop #3 — Location TBD

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

5:30pm-7:30pm

Focus: Top Three Sites, Concepts and Charette

Community Workshop #4 — Location TBD

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

5:30pm-7:30pm

Focus: Preliminary Schematic Design and Charette

Community Workshop #5 — Location TBD

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

5:30pm-7:30pm

Focus: Final Schematic Design and Charette

In April 2021, Commissioner Carmen Rubio directed PP&R to begin planning for an indoor aquatic center for North Portland. Commissioner Rubio allocated $11.7 million in System Development Charges (SDCs) toward the future facility to cover the initial project design, permitting, and robust community engagement.

On March 4, 2022, Oregon State Representative Travis Nelson (District 44) successfully advocated for the Oregon Legislature to allocate $15 million in lottery funds to support the project. Currently, the estimated total cost of the completed aquatic center is roughly $50 million. Commissioner Rubio and PP&R will continue to work with community partners to explore options to fill the remaining $23.3 million needed to completely fund the project.

This future indoor aquatic facility could have spray and play features, a competitive lap pool, a therapy pool, a spa, lockers, and reservable party rooms. This center will also provide a community anchor, and jobs— first, construction jobs and later, recreation and programming jobs—for adults and youth. It will meet wider exercise and recreation needs and host classes and camps.

Dana Vollmer Grant, who swam as Dana Vollmer, joined the ELS team as an aquatics and sports programming specialist.

She was asked by Clarence D. Mamuyac, Jr. (FAIA, LEED AP BD+C) President/CEO of ELS: What about pools for laps or even recreational and family swim?

“Now that I swim with my two-year-old, I am just as aware of the environment as I was before. But you become aware of different aspects. If you are not moving vigorously, you want a warmer pool.

I want my son to have a positive experience with water. One big reason to get kids in the water early is that they will be more comfortable with it, and that means they will be safer. I like the zero-depth entry. It’s important that he can get his feet on the ground and that he can recover himself. A place to get his face splashed and a place to climb are good too. Kids should have more than a playground in the water. They should have some interactive activities. I am right there balancing and floating in two feet of water to show him my comfort level.”

See more at elsarch.com

The architect and construction company will eventually be chosen by a Request For Proposals process for fairness, but for now ELS Architecture and Urban Design is doing the Phase 1 work. It is working with Parks and Rec on Site Selection, Programming, Schematic Design and Land Use Permitting.

The Design Development, Construction Documents, and Site Permitting phase of work is anticipated to start January 2024. This phase will require a new Request for Proposals (RFP) issued by City Of Portland Procurement Services.

https://www.portland.gov/parks/construction/north-portland-aquatic-center-project#toc-our-next-open-house

“Winnie needs a caregiver with her to experience the world. It’s been a journey finding what she loves, and one of them is water. Her little body has lots of pain, but she unfolds in a warm body of water, it’s like liquid Xanax.”

Jenny Hoyt, mother of Winnie, 6

“(PPR) are trying to create something that, that the public can be proud of, you know, the neighborhood can be proud of, that accommodates all sorts of things, like making sure we have beach entry access for wheelchairs, or even walkers, the appropriate lift equipment to help people get in and out of the pool, adult size changing tables… Historically, there has been terrible access for minorities to swimming facilities. They’re trying to make sure that that’s mitigated before it even starts.”

Derrell Wheeler, Roosevelt HS swim coach