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The city of Lakeland’s popular Gandy Pool at the Kelly Recreation Center will be closed for much of the winter and early spring for renovations. But the city’s parks director made two promises at Monday’s City Commission meeting:
- It won’t close until the city’s other pool at Simpson Park reopens.
- Gandy Pool will reopen by late May in time for summer swimming.
The closing – the first in 20 years for the 31-year-old pool – is scheduled to start later this month though an exact date has not been set yet, according to Bob Donahay, the city’s director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
The work on the south Lakeland pool will not start until swimmers can again use the pool at north Lakeland’s Simpson Park in an estimated two weeks, Donahay emphasized. The Simpson Park pool, which is unheated, has been closed for repairs since June 14; those repairs ended up being more complicated, costlier and taking longer than originally anticipated after the pool’s liner separated from the wall.
The Gandy Pool is a 10-lane, 25-yard heated pool constructed of gunite with a marcite finish. Renovations will include:
- Empty pool and protect existing features, such as rails, platforms, lifeguard stations, lighting.
- Remove tiles, plaster, sealants and lane markers.
- Install new tiles for gutters, lanes, and wall targets.
- Verify pool shell meets USA 2023 swimming rules.
- Apply quartz aggregate finish with required inspections.
- Prepare pool for reopening.
City commissioners today chose Finishing by Baker of Naples for the $433,000 project.
The company’s bid was the highest of three submitted, but city’s pool consultant, Scott Vaughn, ruled the lower bids from Electro Mechanic Industries of Orlando and AUMiller Pools of Winter Park as unresponsive; those two companies did not meet the requirements to have completed three jobs as complex as the Gandy project in the last three years.
