CALDWELL, Idaho — As winter gets underway, many of us are already looking forward to the swimming weather next summer. The city of Caldwell is making progress this winter at the city's public pool.
- The $9.5 million project has been in the works for several years already.
- The historic Caldwell pool opened more than a century ago, but it's been closed since 2020.
- Caldwell plans to reopen the pool in the summer of 2025.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
After being closed for the last several summers, Caldwell's historic pool plans to reopen with a splash in 2025. Construction crews working hard this winter to rebuild the pool that welcomed Caldwell swimmers for more than a century.
Caldwell's Park and Rec Superintendent Denise Milburn tells me she remembers visiting the pool as a little girl. After working for the city for more than 20 years, she knew how important it was to get it back up and running.
"I've been so committed to trying to get this going, you know, and whatever we had to do to find the funding to make it right, because there were always suggestions like, 'what if we put in a splash pad?' And I'm like, 'absolutely no'. You can't do swim lessons with a splash pad," Milburn said.
Milburn's goal is for every child in Caldwell to learn how to swim and is excited for the pool to host lessons again on opening day, but extended delays and increasing project expenses have stretched out the timeline.
"So everything on the pool has to be bonded electrically so that you don't get electric charges. And so it was tested one day and then it failed," said Robb MacDonald, the Director of Public Works for the city of Caldwell.
After closing in 2020 to make plans for repairs, they uncovered more messes that needed attention.
"You know, once you get into an old project like that, it's like peeling away an onion," MacDonald said. "There's just more layers that you find. And so that kind of put us into a mode where we wanted to go in and do design and then put something together that the community would be proud of."
The $9.5 million project is expected to last 50-plus years, which will have a brand new bathhouse, a zip line, diving boards, and will be able to host small swim meets, which is new to the city.
For Milburn, she's just happy construction is finally underway, looking forward to more people coming to recreate in Caldwell. Crews will be working hard for the next several months, and the city plans to welcome swimmers next summer. We'll keep you posted when we learn more about key dates for the season.