Crosspointe Church is building a new fitness facility in NW Cary which will be leased and operated by the YMCA.  That’s pretty awesome and should serve as an excellent example of how organizations can partner to provide amenities.  Town of Cary should take note and be more active in seeking these partnerships in order to more rapidly provide its residents recreational amenities.

So that’s the good news.  The bad news is the pool that is planned for the facility – a single outdoor 6 lane pool.  While a pool is better than no pool, it’s really only barely better than no pool.  Here’s why:

• Outdoor pools can only be used a third of the year.  Why limit swimming to 4 months out of the year?
• Outdoor pools only support summer league teams and do nothing to alleviate the need for USA Swimming team space in the area.  Why ignore such a pressing need?
• A single pool drastically constrains aquatic offerings.  No single pool can adequately accommodate learn to swim, water aerobics, swim team, therapy, etc.  In fact, no modern aquatics plan ever advocates a single pool.  So why build such a pool?
• The anticipated users of the pool all have community outdoor pools of similar size or bigger (Cameron Pond, Weycroft, Cary Park, Amberly, Greystone, Hilliard Forest, Copperleaf, Carpenter Village, Highcroft, Weldon Ridge).  Why duplicate what is already readily available?

So while what Crosspointe and the YMCA are doing for the community is great – they’ve completely missed the boat with the pool.  It’s a blown opportunity for aquatics needs in NW Cary and should leave people asking, “WHY?”.

Why Project Ground Breaking

Is it 2017 already?  Town of Cary plans early and they’re accepting feedback for fiscal year 2017 until October 31, 2015.  So please submit feedback – especially if that feedback is “Cary Needs a Pool”.

Press Release

E-Mail the Town

Yesterday Cary Town Council approved a $4.3 million dollar award for a new downtown park. The park has a pretty big fountain. That’s almost like a pool.

Never mind the fact that for $4.3 million you could actually get a pool. I’m sure the park will be great too.

Back in the mid 2000s, Town of Cary was actively considering an aquatics center.  It even had an official tracking number, name, and $10 million+ budget line – PR1080 Aquatic Facility. There were meetings about the facility and much debate about the size, scope, and location of the project.  However by January 2008 the planning had stalled and the Town Council requested staff look for additional locations for the PR1080 Aquatic Facility in the north Cary and the downtown Cary area. Town Council also requested staff to develop additional program alternatives.

Then things went pretty quiet.  In December 2009 the project was unceremoniously put in “Delay” status. Later in 2011 funding was reduced to $13,474,200. Finally in the 2013 budget, the PR1080 Aquatics Center project was marked as closed.  Why was it closed?  No clue.  Searching the Town of Cary website usually returns some useful results.  But I can’t find anything about why it was removed from the budget.  I even asked Mayor Weinbrecht where it went but all he could provide was, “I do believe an aquatics center is part of the Parks Master Plan.”  Sure, the plan mentions aquatics facilities (it mentions lots of nice things we might someday get) but it doesn’t address where the PR1080 Aquatic Facility project went and where all the budgeted money went.

Then this week I found something quite interesting.  A blog post from Don Frantz announcing his bid for re-election mentioned the pool.

I championed the redevelopment of Cary Elementary into The Cary Arts Center which we paid for with cash that a previous council had earmarked for a pool.

So that’s where the money went.  But why on earth is there nothing on the Town of Cary website about this?  I’ve searched meeting minutes, Town Council agendas, staff recommendations, budget documents, etc and I couldn’t find anything. But thanks to Don’s blog post, it’s finally public where the aquatics center project money went.  And to be clear, I have nothing against the Cary Arts Center – I just wish there had been more public discussion about where the funding for the Arts Center was coming from and what was being sacrificed to achieve it.

It can be difficult to measure the quality of a pool. Do you do it by size, age, water temperature, etc?  When I’m traveling and looking for a pool where I can workout, the thing I look for is whether a USA Swim team practices there.  For a USA Swim team to practice effectively at a given facility, the pool must meet some minimum criteria regarding size, water temperature, and anti-wake properties.  So I thought it would be interesting to take a look at pools in the Triangle where USA Swim teams practice.  Thankfully, the USA Swimming site makes that pretty easy to do.  Here are the results.

Swim team members will typically travel farther than lap swimmers, learn to swim participants, or other recreational swimmers. For this reason, the map above uses a standard 5-mile service area radius for participants on a USA Swim Team.

As you can see from the map, Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are all well covered by USA Swim Teams. Town of Cary is partially covered by clubs at three pools in Cary: Cary Family YMCA, Cary Swim Club, and Triangle Aquatic Center. Cary Family YMCA provides the bulk of the partial coverage for central and western Town of Cary. It should be noted, however, that the club at Cary Family YMCA does not offer practices for the 3 highest levels of the program: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. For those, you have to travel to Raleigh.

So why isn’t central and western Cary better served by USA Swim teams?  The simple fact is that there aren’t any decent pools in that area.  The Cary Family YMCA pool is an older pool and it’s bubbled in the winter.  And that’s the best pool in that area other than the UNC Wellness Center which was not designed to accommodate a team (no deck space, starting blocks, or desire to rent lanes).  Clearly these two areas could greatly benefit from a new pool and the new pool would have no competition attracting USA Swimming clubs wanting to rent lanes.  This is where Town of Cary should step up and provide a quality facility for its citizens so they don’t have to drive all over the Triangle to find a decent pool.

Sometimes I hear this when asked why Cary doesn’t have a municipal pool, “Private industry already covers the Town’s aquatics needs.”  This reasoning is usually provided by people who either don’t have aquatics needs or live in a certain area of Cary.  So here’s the coverage map for indoor pools in and around Cary.

Couple notes regarding how a pool made the list and the coverage area. To make the list, the facility must offer year round access to pools. So outdoor pools are not included since they only provide access 3 or 4 months out of the year. The exception is a pool that bubbles during the winter to provide year round access (e.g. YMCA, Cary Swim Club, and Morrisville Aquatic Center).

To determine the coverage area for a pool, municipal commissioned aquatic studies from other areas were consulted as a guide and then applied against the Town of Cary pools. In general, the larger the pool and aquatic complex, the larger the coverage area.

As the map shows, the Northwest and Southwest portions of the Town of Cary are quite underserved. Southwest Town of Cary has no close options and Northwest has only one relatively expensive option (UNC Wellness Center).

While central Cary appears well served, it should be noted that the four pools serving this area are more limited use types of pools. Morrisville Aquatic is an older pool, has fewer than 6 lanes, is bubbled in the winter, and lacks wave-reducing gutters. Sport2Sport has very narrow lanes and also lacks wave-reducing gutters. Rex Wellness – Cary not surprisingly caters more to a water aerobics crowd and not lap swimming / learn to swim. The fourth pool, Cary Family YMCA is arguably the nicest of the four, however, it’s an older pool that’s bubbled in the winter and is only available to those with a monthly membership (no drop in day passes).

Eastern Cary benefits greatly from the Triangle Aquatic Center as well as supplemental coverage from Cary Swim Club and Life Time Fitness. Because Triangle Aquatic Center is such a nice pool, it does suffer from crowding during peak usage times. This is less of a negative regarding the facility and more of a statement regarding the high demand for quality swimming pools in the area.

The Town of Cary 2011-2012 Parks Recreation and Cultural Resources Master Plan compared the Town of Cary against seven other communities. According to the plan, “Comparative data from the following seven communities was collected and analyzed in relation to the Town of Cary. The Communities were chosen because they are known for having quality parks and recreation systems.”

Let’s see how the number of municipal pools compared…

It’s worth re-iterating that I didn’t pick these cities to compare Cary against.  These were picked by the group authoring the Parks Recreation and Cultural Resources Master Plan.  You’d think they would have used at least picked one other community without a municipal pool.  Anyway – the numbers sort of speak for themselves.  Town of Cary continues to stand out amongst its national peers

Town of Cary has grown leaps and bounds over the past 3 decades.  A reasonable question might be, does Cary have the population to support a public pool?  Here are some population stats from other Triangle cities followed by public pools in these cities.

So why does Cary even need a pool?  Here are just some of the reasons:

Better Access to Pools

• Town of Cary aquatic needs are under-served by current privately run facilities.
• Town of Cary currently does not own or operate any indoor or outdoor pools.
• Of the closest Triangle cities, Cary and Apex are the only ones without a municipal pool.