JANESVILLE — The Janesville City Council awarded a $3.4 million construction contract Monday night to JP Cullen, of Janesville, to replace the Palmer Park wading pool with a new Aquatics Facility at a different location in the park.
The wading pool has been a fixture at Palmer Park for nearly 90 years. The proposed new Palmer Aquatics Facility would be built on the west end of South Harmony Drive. It would include a zero-depth entry, aquatic play features, lap lanes, a new pool building to house mechanicals, bathroom/showers, a staff area and concessions.
Jennifer Petruzzello, the city’s director of neighborhood services, said the city expects to convert the wading pool site to green space.
The entire Aquatics Facility project — including construction, extra funds for unexpected costs, other expenses, and equipment—was expected based on estimates in July to come to around $5 million
Now, based on the bid accepted from J.P. Cullen, the total expected cost is $4.2 million, about $800,000 less than estimated last month. The rest of the costs will be bid out later.
That’s slightly higher than a 2021 estimate of $2.5 million to $4 million.
Construction is envisioned to start in the fall and done by the spring of 2025.
The Palmer Wading Pool, built in 1936, has been periodically renovated over the years, including in 1989 and 2009.
A 2021 evaluation determined that the existing wading pool had reached the end of its useful life. Major issues identified then included depressions, cracks and fault lines in the concrete slab at the bottom of the 63,000-gallon pool, leading to significant leaks and water loss.
City officials said in April that the new location would offer many advantages, including its proximity to other park amenities, and a location outside of a flood zone. It would be in an underutilized area of the park, opening up new programming and special event space, and offering additional parking to serve all park users.
Discussion
Cassandra Pope, a Janesville resident, told the council Monday night that replacing the Palmer Park wading pool is needed. However, she said she felt there were some “missing links” in the design and bid proposal.
She said more community input was needed that wasn’t just deciding the umbrella colors.
“Approximately $1.5 million has already been allocated for Parks and Recreation projects such as this,” she said. “Are there other projects that would be wiser to spend this money on, potentially maintenance and upgrades to Rockport Pool or Lions Beach, seems to be a greater value,” she said.
City Council Member Heather Miller asked why the city didn’t repair or upgrade its existing water amenities.
“I look at what it would have cost us the $1.9 million in 2022 money. (That’s) $1.9 million to absolutely overhaul Rockport pool, increase the square footage of the amenities, double the size of a concession stand, add an additional splash pad, and we aren’t even at $2 million,” she said. “We could easily put a $100,000 slash pad to replace the Palmer Park wading pool with no maintenance. I don’t understand why we are building something or intend to want to build something new and shiny when we’re not taking care of what we already have.”
She felt as though the city was putting the “cart before the horse,” on the project.
City Council member Paul Williams said he felt traffic in that area would be unsafe.
“I don’t like the design, I don’t like the location and I don’t agree with the concept,” he said.
Williams made a motion to not approve the bid contract and that was seconded by Miller. The motion went on to fail by 2-4 with council members Michael Jackson, Richard Neeno, Aaron Burdick and Dave Marshick votig no.
Burdick made a second motion to award the contract to JP Cullen and it passed 4-2 with Miller and Williams voting no.
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