Opelika Plans Aquatics Improvements
BY KENDYL HOLLINGSWORTH
KENDYLH@
OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
OPELIKA —
By summer 2024, Opelika residents and visitors might have more to enjoy at the city’s aquatics facilities.
The city of Opelika has partnered with Counsilman-Hunsaker, a national planning and design firm that specializes in aquatics, to plan improvements for the Opelika Sportsplex and Covington Recreation Center.
Back in early March 2022, several residents provided feedback and input on what the future of aquatics could look like in Opelika. That feedback helped shape the plans.
Tyler McGill, head swim coach for the city of Opelika, shared the results of a feasibility study at a work session held before the July 5 Opelika City Council meeting. The study aimed to determine how the current plans would meet the needs of patrons and how practical it would be for the city to implement the upgrades.
“There’s about six to eight lanes of lap space that’s available at our pools now,” McGill said.
But with more and more people using the facilities, McGill said the current offerings aren’t ideal for the growing userbase.
The upgrades would aim to solve that space issue and make the aquatics facilities more enjoyable for residents and visitors.
“We wanted to make sure we looked at both rec centers, so we started with Covington,” McGill said at the meeting. “In terms of the feedback that we got there, it’s just this idea of ultimate family fun — somewhere where families can go and spend hours at the pool where they can learn to swim, where there’s recreational activities, where they feel like it’s really safe for younger kids who are still learning to swim can be there.”
McGill said the plans for Covington include an outdoor multipurpose pool, a separate 1,200-square-foot “spraypad” and the addition of a lifeguard office, rental pavilion and mechanical room. Several shaded areas would be placed around the pool and the play area. The placement of the amenities would also allow for easy access to the locker rooms.
The 4,000-square-foot pool would include two 25-yard lap lanes, a zero-depth sloped entry, a children’s play unit, a single waterslide tower, an open recreational area and a programmable area. The pool would not exceed a depth of 4 feet.
According to McGill, the spraypad would be a wet deck with no standing water. It would also include several vertical and ground features and spray devices.
“I think that Covington Rec obviously needs an upgrade with their pool, and I think it’s amazing,” said Ward 5 Opelika City Council Member Todd Rauch.
For the Sportsplex, McGill said the goal was to first meet the needs of the community and then make sure the improvements would be compatible with the needs of the city’s swim team. But McGill said it’s important to note the Sportsplex also serves more than just the city’s population.
“It’s not just Opelika,” he said. “There’s lots of people from surrounding areas that come and use this, and so if you look at the expanded area, there’s over 100,000 people that reach out and use the Sportsplex and our aquatics facilities, and our swim team has grown up to over 200 people. The reality is with those needs, you’re looking at a much larger need in terms of what this city could provide.”
McGill said some of the feedback included requests for more lap lane availability in the afternoon and evening. To address that, the plans include more lap space in the outdoor pool: up to 24 25-yard lanes and eight 50-meter lanes. The 15,800-square-foot pool is about the size of an Olympic pool, McGill said. It would range from 3.5 to 7 feet deep and include two 6-foot, movable bulkheads. The bulkheads would allow the pool to be sectioned off into spaces for lap swimming and recreational swimming. Off to the side, shaded bleachers would allow for spectators to watch more comfortably on hot, sunny days.
The goal with the new plans is to provide a better balance of recreational and competitive swimming space, according to the study.
“We want to be able to increase our ability to have more regional meets, and then the potential for larger meets as well,” McGill said.
Bigger swim meets would mean more visitors from across the southeast, which would bring in more revenue for the city. McGill said Counsilman-Hunsaker estimated the new-and-improved pool would bring a value of about $1.8 million to $2 million per year starting out, with the potential for increase in the future.
“I think this is great, and I think this is one thing that Opelika truly needs to pull people in from surrounding areas to hopefully come to this,” Rauch said.
In addition to the swimming pool, the Sportsplex would offer a new spraypad: a “splashtacular” children’s play unit with an elevated play structure and plenty of water features, such as dump buckets and spray devices.
A new entry building for the Sportsplex is also included in the plans. It would have a check-in area, office space and restrooms.
There is still “significant planning” to be done, McGill said, but the goal is to have the improvements in place in about two years. The next step will be to address any remaining concerns as architects spend the next few months designing a more specific layout.
Covington Recreation Center is located at 213 Carver Ave. and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 24 hours on Saturday. It is closed on Sunday. The Opelika Sportsplex is open Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.