Projects to repair and upgrade some Enumclaw city recreational services are making some headway.

The Enumclaw City Council, during their regular meeting on Sept. 26, unanimously passed the consent agenda, which included accepting a $1.2 million grant from King County to spruce up the pool and approving $57,000 to be spent on designing a new skate park.

The grant for the pool has been a long time coming — the city applied for the grant (funded by a county parks levy) in late 2021, and the county officially approved it in May 2022. Now that the city council has accepted it, Phase 1 of pool upgrades can finally be designed.

Upgrades to the pool are expected to include making ADA upgrades to locker rooms, converting public restrooms to family changing rooms, constructing a meeting/party room rental space, and updating the exterior front of the building.

None of the work being done on the building will affect programs at the pool, though temporary routes to access the pool will be established when the entrance is under construction.

Design of Phase 1 will continue for the rest of the year, with bidding expected to be open fall 2023 and the project finished by the summer of 2024.

This is just the beginning of what is hoped to be several large changes coming to the pool.

Phase 2, for example, may include building an exterior patio and a splash pad, a project of which is expected to cost around $600,000 to construct.

And Phase 3 aims to bring the biggest upgrades. At an estimated $8.5 million, it could bring new amenities like a leisure pool and therapy/spa pools.

None of those upgrades are set in stone, though the Enumclaw City Council appears to view them favorably. At the same time, how the projects will be funded is unknown, but city Parks and Rec Director Michelle Larson is intent on continuing to apply for grants.

SKATE PARK DESIGN

Enumclaw is now officially contracted with Gridline to design a new skatepark at Dwight Garret Park for roughly $57,000.

The skatepark closed last July; a child was injured while using one of the ramps, and the city deemed that it would be too costly to repair, if repairs could be made at all, and removed the ramps shortly after.

Although the city held several community meetings in 2018 to gather input on what a new skatepark should be like, Gridline and city officials will be hosting two community meetings sometime in the future.

The first will introduce Gridline to the community, explain the input process, and begin accepting ideas; a preliminary concept will be presented a the second community meeting and feedback will be collected.

All community meetings and a final design are expected to be completed by mid-January 2023, and the city hopes to finish construction by June.