Canonsburg taking steps toward replacing historic pool house
townpark
Observer-Reporter
The bath house at Canonsburg Town Park pool is pictured Jan. 29, 2019.
Courtesy of Canonsburg Parks and Recreation
The historic bath house at Town Park pool can be seen in the background of this photo.
Canonsburg’s Town Park pool as it appeared in 1952.
Canonsburg council members indicated they plan to replace the historic Town Park pool house.
Officials discussed rebuilding the aging facility – which was built with the pool in the mid-1930s as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal – during a committee meeting Monday.
Council voted to form a five-member committee including two people from council and one each from KLH Engineers Inc., the public works department and the borough park committee so the group can hash out how they want the new building to look.
“I think right now now we need to find out where you want it to go,” said borough engineer Veronica Bennett of KLH.
Those present didn’t name members of the committee during the meeting.
The roughly hour and a half of discussion meandered from possible layout and new features in the design – like a party room that could be rented out – to the deteriorating conditions of the existing structure.
A rough estimate presented to council a month ago came in at $580,000. With the borough’s operating budget at $5.3 million, officials will almost certainly have to secure financing and seek grant funds to come up with the money.
Still, they said replacing the building is preferable to spending the $40,000 or $50,000 it’s been costing every year to keep making repairs to it.
The pool and building that houses bathrooms were completed in 1935 as a project of the Works Progress Administration. The agency existed to put men to work building infrastructure while unemployment was rampant amid the Great Depression.
It’s one of the largest public pools in the state.
Rich Russo, president of the park board, told council members he’d support their decision if they opted to tear down the building, but reminded them of its importance to the community.
“The only question that I think we need to be at least sure that we’ve had the conversation with – doesn’t have to be community – could be community, but with the park board – is do you want to remove what is very close to everybody’s heart?” he said. “People will be passionate about taking that building down.”
Afterward, Russo said the pump room that was part of the original building would stay at the site, with the new building constructed around it.
Councilman R.T. Bell said he’s “all for the history and nostalgia and all that.” Still, he said the borough couldn’t afford to keep maintaining the existing structure.
“If all that money were to put that building in a decent shape where it was structurally safe … but we’ve been dumping all that money, and we’re worse off than where it was before.”