FARGO (KFGO) – The last days of the swimming season are upon us but when Island Park pool closes on Sunday, it won’t just be for the summer. The iconic Fargo pool is slated to be demolished next March to make room for construction starting May 1, 2023 of a new pool which will open in 2024.
While the project is part of a larger park district effort to rejuvenate Island Park as a whole, the district’s executive director Dave Leker says the pool which opened in 1978 is well-past its expiration date.
“30 to 35 years is the typical lifespan of a pool just because you have so much mechanical and underground pipes. The ground in the southeast corner is settling a little bit and that affects our filtration system and our stainless steel gutter system so that’s kind of a big thing too, and then it’s just getting to the end of its life – it’s 44 years old now,” Leker said.
Leker said the community has great fondness for the Island Park pool.
“A lot of people who have been around Fargo for many years kind of like just the nostalgia of the pool the way it is. We tried to get feedback from that local area but then we wanted to get input from all the citizens of Fargo because it is a Park District pool and it does serve the whole community, and a lot of that feedback was ‘we want to see as much play value as possible’ so we had to find a balance between those two,” he said.
The new pool will include adding a zero-entry leisure pool connecting to a lazy river, two slides, and a five-meter dive platform while retaining the competition pool and 3-meter diving boards, but the footprint will be about the same and stay in its current location. Plans call for retaining the concrete Fargo Arena facade from 1938 and the art-deco style of the bathhouse in the new design.
