Renovations planned for West Seattle’s Colman Pool – if $ stays

The city Parks Department is planning some renovations at West Seattle’s only outdoor pool, Colman Pool in Lincoln Park – but the plan’s fate is pending, as Parks managers wait to see if the $900,000 allotted for the work will stay in the budget. Parks spokesperson Dewey Potter tells WSB the planned renovations include “adding a family changing area that would be accessible for people with disabilities, and reinforcing the structure of the deck, and other miscellaneous work.” Right now, design work is scheduled to happen this year, with construction next year – if the potential funding stays out of range of the sizable budget ax that’s expected to fall next month, once city number-crunchers figure out just how much real-estate-excise-tax revenue they’ve lost. Meantime, this year’s Colman Pool season is scheduled to open May 23; swim-lesson registration starts April 2; learn about the pool’s history in our West Seattle 101 on WSB section.

Venkat March 18, 2009 (6:09 pm)

Those sound like great additions….it would be nice if they were to consider extending the season though!

CMP March 18, 2009 (7:55 pm)

Please allocate some money to fix the showers…they’re terrible! Glad to see the pool will open May 23rd, can’t wait to swim outdoors again :)

alison March 18, 2009 (9:13 pm)

I was also hoping to see if the locker room would be renovated, especially the shower area. No such luck! Hopefully this project stays funded. Coleman pool is wonderful and I can’t wait until opening day!

md March 18, 2009 (10:02 pm)

What about funding for additional outdoor pools in Seattle? This facility is heavily used. The city needs to invest in another.

Aimee March 18, 2009 (10:50 pm)

If you’re interested in supporting pools through out seattle please visit our website for information on ways that you can help seattlepools.org

Amy March 19, 2009 (8:17 am)

This is also (as far as I know) the only pool that’s saltwater.

Does anyone know if there are any other pools in the greater seattle area that do NOT use chlorine? For those of us who are allergic or sensitive (a large % of the population) it would be so nice to have a pool that’s got the alternative chemicals in it.

swimcat March 19, 2009 (9:30 am)

I think most of the city pools went through renovations recently where they installed UV light or something like that so they wouldn’t have to use as much chlorine. I’m a lifelong swimmer and actually like the smell of chlorine so I didn’t pay too much attention to that improvement. I’m pretty sure they did this at SW Pool over the summer- though I wish they would have bought some real lane lines and installed backstroke flags instead.

Amy March 19, 2009 (6:12 pm)

swimcat, less chlorine is a good thing, simply from a “we use too many chemicals” perspective. Sadly, it won’t do any good for those of us who break out in welts or hives from any amount of the stuff.

Maybe I’m the only one, but I really wish there were a few pools out there that were JUST saltwater or that used the chlorine alternative (is it Bromine or something? I can’t recall the name of it)

Sorry, comment time is over.