Cary Needs a Pool

Life Time Alston Town Center is finally opening this month. And in a town that’s desperate for lap lanes, any new pool feels like good news. But before we celebrate, it’s worth asking a simple question: what does $250 a month actually get you?

A Lap Pool That Barely Clears the Bar

Life Time’s marketing makes this place sound like an aquatic showpiece. The reality is a lot more modest. They’re advertising an indoor lap pool with six lanes. Six.

For anyone familiar with modern aquatics, that number should immediately raise an eyebrow. Six lanes was standard many decades ago. Today, a pool designed to meet real community demand starts at eight lanes (and often more). Six lanes is the minimum required to call something a lap pool without laughing.

Now picture the morning rush. A handful of Masters swimmers, a few strong lap swimmers, and Northwest Cary residents trying to squeeze in a workout before work. Those lanes are going to feel crowded fast. This is not a facility built to absorb demand. It’s built to meet a marketing requirement.

Here’s the full breakdown:

• Indoor lap pool: 6 lanes
• Indoor teaching pool: a genuinely good addition, since it keeps lessons out of the lap pool
• Outdoor lap pool: 5 lanes (again, just barely clearing the “lap pool” definition)

Nothing here is going to substantially help with Town of Cary aquatic needs.

The Real Issue: Price

The bigger problem isn’t just the lane count. It’s who gets access. At $250 a month, Life Time is not a community resource, it’s a luxury product. That’s $3,000 a year for a single adult. For a family of four with kids over 13? Nearly $4,800 a year.

That price point excludes a lot of Cary residents. And once again, the burden of meeting basic aquatic needs falls to private clubs instead of the town itself. This is Town of Cary’s preferred approach, “Let the private sector handle it.” Instead of building municipal pools, the Town of Cary waits for luxury gyms to open and then points to them as solutions. The message is pretty clear: if you want access to water, you’d better be able to afford it. Meanwhile:

• Morrisville, a much smaller town, builds a municipal aquatic facility
• Durham passes bonds that include meaningful funding for public pools
• Cary shrugs and lets a high-end gym charge residents a fortune for six lanes

This isn’t planning. It’s avoidance.

A Luxury Gym Isn’t an Aquatic Strategy

Life Time Alston Town Center will probably be a nice place to hang out. The gym will be shiny. The smoothies will be good. But as a response to Cary’s long-standing aquatic shortage? It’s not moving the needle.

Town leaders should be embarrassed that in Cary, one of the wealthiest cities in the state, basic access to lap swimming is quietly becoming a luxury reserved for those who can afford a premium monthly fee. Access to water shouldn’t be a status symbol.

On November 5th, Cary residents made a wise decision by voting down the proposed $500M+ parks bond referendum, rejecting it by a wide 10-point margin. This massive package, surprisingly omitting any support for aquatics, was clearly out of step with community priorities. While some may be disappointed by the outcome, this is a valuable opportunity. If this bond had passed, it likely would have postponed funding for much-needed aquatics facilities for years.

Frankly, it’s baffling that aquatics was completely omitted in the referendum. Cary is in desperate need for more pool facilities. Current options are limited, overcrowded, and Cary is not on par with comparable communities.

Durham Makes a Splash

Unlike Cary, our neighbors in Durham passed their own bond referendum last night, and guess what? It included funding for aquatics! Durham clearly recognizes the importance of investing in community pools. It’s time for Cary to catch up and better prioritize the needs of its residents.

The call for community-provided aquatics in Cary is far from over. This bond’s failure is an opportunity to make your voice heard—let town representatives know how important aquatics facilities are to our community.

The Town of Cary has recently proposed a new bond referendum to fund the development of new recreation centers. While on the surface this sounds like a positive step forward, a closer look reveals a significant issue: the proposed bond does not include plans for ANY aquatic facilities. Details here: https://carybonds.org/

Community Input Ignored

During the planning process for the Mills Park Community Center, the Town of Cary conducted an online survey. An overwhelming 70% of the 2,740 respondents expressed a strong desire for indoor aquatic activities. Despite this clear demand, the current bond proposal completely ignores the need for aquatic components.

Cary Behind Other Triangle Communities

Cary is currently the only town among its Triangle peers—Durham, Chapel Hill, Morrisville, and Raleigh—that lacks municipal aquatic facilities. While neighboring communities offer their residents access to public pools and aquatic centers, Cary’s options are limited to private or non-profit facilities. This gap puts undue strain on families and swimmers, who face long commutes or high membership costs—burdens that not all families can afford.

Addressing Western Cary Needs

Western Cary, in particular, suffers from a severe shortage of lap lanes. Many families are forced to make lengthy trips to the Triangle Aquatic Center (TAC) for practices or swim meets. This inconvenience affects daily life and, in some cases, may even deter families from participating in swimming altogether.

Vote NO

Given the strong community support for aquatic facilities, the exclusion of such amenities from this bond referendum is unacceptable. Approving the bond as it stands means missing a crucial opportunity to address a significant need. With the bond amounting to $500 million, it’s uncertain when Twon of Cary will next have the chance to consider adding aquatic facilities.

Send a clear message to the Town of Cary: Vote NO on November 5th to ensure our community’s needs are met.

If you’ve visited the Town of Cary’s website, you might have gotten the impression that the Triangle Aquatic Center (TAC) is a town-funded and operated facility.

However, that’s far from the truth.

The reality is that the TAC was built by a group of dedicated swim parents and community members who recognized the need for more aquatic facilities in the triangle. They didn’t rely on taxpayer dollars or government help. Instead, through sheer determination and fundraising efforts, they secured land, financing, and eventually opened the doors to one of the best aquatic facilities in the region.

Since then, TAC has received minimal support from the Town of Cary. Yet, the town website seems to imply otherwise, potentially misleading residents about the Town of Cary’s true support for aquatic access within the community. Town of Cary owns and operates many athletic facilities, but let’s be clear, an aquatic center is not one of them.

Don’t be fooled by appearances on the town website. The Triangle Aquatic Center is a testament to community spirit, but it’s not a substitute for a true town-funded facility. It’s time for Cary to step up and provide the aquatic center that augments facilities like the TAC and provides aquatic access to a wider range of citizens.

The Morrisville Aquatics & Fitness Center (MAFC) pool is now open and boy did they get almost everything right. Unlike other recently built area pools, I’m looking at you NW Cary YMCA, this pool appears to have been built by a group that actually knows something about swimming. Here are some of the highlights:

• Continuous gutters
• 8 ft deep end
• Permanent starting blocks
• No wall water return jets
• Separate leisure / kids pool areas
• Lap swim friendly water temperature
• Retractable roof to allow fresh air / sunlight in

The only minor quibbles I have are the pool is only 6 lanes and the lane lines look like they use 4″ floats. Definitely where the money ran out. But other than that it’s a fantastic pool. I love the almost all glass structure with retractable roof segments. It’s like swimming outdoors year round only with better temperature regulation.

This is truly the pool Cary should have built (well, maybe 8 lanes with a little more deck space for meets). Thankfully Morrisville is surrounded by Cary and they offer really low per swim rates even for non-residents. So thank you Morrisville. You’re a relatively small town yet you were able to do what the bigger and better financed Cary couldn’t.

The renovation of the Morrisville Aquatics & Fitness Center (MAFC) is finally happening.  And included in that renovation are two new indoor pools!  While it’s not Cary, Morrisville is close enough to be exciting news and certainly helps ease some of year round lane shortage in Cary.

The MAFC will close on Friday, November 16. The facility will be closed for about a year and is scheduled to reopen in late 2019.  When it does, gone will be the bubbled 4 lane pool, replaced by a new 6-lane lap pool and separate play pool.  The new year-round natatorium will be constructed with a retractable roof to allow for open-air use in the warmer months.  So that’s pretty awesome.

The only sad news is the pool has gone from a planned 8 lanes down to 6.  I’m sure cost constraints played a large factor in that revision.  Still 6 is better than the previous 4 lanes and infinitely better than anything Town of Cary has provided residents.

The Taylor YMCA in Cary finally posted something about their new aquatic center project.  And by something, I mean very little.  They never responded to email inquiries about the project either.  The few details can be found here:

TAYLOR FAMILY YMCA AQUATIC CENTER

Not much more than what we already knew.  8 lane “cool water” pool (their words) and a 4 lane warm water pool that wasn’t pictured in the plans pulled from the Town of Cary site.  Hopefully this means they’re actually moving forward with the project and will publicize it more in the near future.

It was nice that they included, “currently, the Taylor Y cannot meet the year-round aquatic needs for the growing community.”  I wish Town of Cary also recognized this and would help do something about it.

Is the Cary Family YMCA building a new indoor pool?  Well while the Cary Family YMCA hasn’t posted anything and there haven’t been any news articles about it, the Town of Cary development site has a plan submission for a new indoor pool.  The Cary Family YMCA currently bubbles their big pool during the winter.  However, as everyone knows, that’s not a great solution for indoor swimming.  The proposed new pool is housed within a new permanent structure attached to the existing YMCA.  Design documents show an 8 lane x  25 yard pool wide enough to have lane ropes between the end lanes and the wall.  I emailed the YMCA but haven’t received a response back confirming the project or timeline.  Town of Cary Project Number: 16-SP-087

Not sure how I missed this back in November, but Morrisville has revised its strategy for upgrading the aquatic center.  Given the current upgrade efforts are $1M+ over the available funding, Morrisville is now looking at covering the upgraded pool with a permanent vinyl or glass-paneled dome.  Still 8 lanes, no change there, just a reduction in the cost of the structure to fit within the funding.

Certainly not ideal, but hey – at least Morrisville is trying to make this work.  I still can’t believe they haven’t found a partner to help offset the funding short fall.  A local swim team, the Town of Cary, some group has to be able to help them make up the difference.

More details here:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/cary-news/article115152398.html

Longtime Cary Town Manager Ben Shivar retired late last year.  Now after a lengthy search, Town of Cary has selected Sean Stegall, city manager of Elgin, Illinois, as his replacement.  Of obvious importance to this site, “does he like pools?”  Well the US Masters Swim site returned no results for “Stegall” for any race.  So maybe not a best case scenario hire.  But all is not lost.  A quick perusal of the Elgin website revealed that lovely Eglin has three city provided aquatic centers.  Three! That’s amazing!  Eglin is only 70% the size of Cary and has a median household income much less than Cary – yet, Eglin still recognized the importance of providing adequate public aquatic resources to their citizens.

Mr. Stegall starts work in Cary on August 4th.  Guess who his first email will be from?  I encourage you to do the same.