By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – For decades, O’Neil Park Pool served as a community gathering place; however, after the facility’s demolition, the City of Bloomington is seeking input on a new aquatics center.
Located at 1515 W. Chestnut Street, the city launched a survey before a virtual public forum to gather community input on a new facility design after it outlived its operational capacity.
“We’ve hired an architect team, and we have a public meeting coming up on the 21 (of January)… from 5-7 p.m. Unfortunately, we have to do that virtually and we also if you go to Bloomingtonparks.org, you’ll see a survey; it will take you like seven or eight minutes that’s it. We want to get what the community want’s for the pool and the park,” said Jay Tetzloff, Director of the City of Bloomington’s Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts Department.
Speaking with WJBC’s Scott Miller, Tetzloff added that initial plans included a community pool, skatepark, and more parking, but with the communities’ perspective, plans are fluid.
“We want to get what the community want’s for the pool and for the park. Initially, it’s just going to be a pool, a skatepark, more parking, and things like that. We’ll add some things in the future like pickleball, like basketball courts, things like that. But, we want to know, we want to build this for the community, that’s why we do things like this. We want to make sure we get the public’s perspective and what they want.”
Demolition of the pool began in September of last year and a completion date for the project is yet to be determined.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
