Saturday, March 24, 2007
The city received two proposals in its third attempt to find a pool builder.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kids will finally get the chance to be all wet in August.
After failing to attract any proposals on two occasions to construct a new North Pool, the city finally received interest from a pair of companies for the project.
The apparent low proposal of 1,453,566 came from A.P. O'Horo of Liberty. The other proposal of 2,223,619 came from Parella Pannunzio Inc. of Youngstown. The proposals were opened Friday.
The engineer's estimate on the pool was 1.5 million, so as long as O'Horo's proposal is in order, the company will do the work.
City officials revised that estimate from 1.1 million during the design process after discovering the project would be more costly than first thought, said Carmen S. Conglose, the city's department of public works.
A recommendation from the public works department on hiring a contractor for the pool job should be to the city's park and recreation commission by its Thursday meeting, Conglose said.
The new pool will hold up to 600 people and be heated. The old pool held up to 400 and wasn't heated. Also, the new pool will have a diving area and splash pads that shoot streams of water.
The completion date for the pool is July 27, and it's expected to open shortly thereafter, Conglose said.
The city's public swimming pool season begins in mid-June and ends in mid-August. The city may extend the season by a couple of weeks.
What happened
The city demolished the old North Pool, built in 1939, in the spring of 2006, planning to build a new state-of-the-art swimming pool by that summer. But changes to the project's cost and scope canceled those plans.
That led to no swimming at one of the city's two pool sites last summer. To make matters worse, Borts Pools on Belle Vista Avenue on the West Side, the city's only other pool, had to close for 22 days beginning July 15, 2006, during the warmest time of the year.
No companies submitted proposals during the two times Youngstown sought contractors to build the pool in October and November 2006. ES & amp;C International, a Youngstown company, oversaw the first two bidding efforts that attracted no proposals.
The city's department of public works stepped in this time and made changes to the project's specifications, in particular the construction of the pool walls.
"I knew we were getting a pool, it was just a matter of when," said Councilman Richard Atkinson, R-3rd, who has the North Pool site in his ward. For about a year, there's been a large sign with Atkinson's name in big letters about the pool's coming soon.
skolnick@vindy.com