A new-wave idea springs up for John Marble Pool

Since reopening to the public two years ago, the pool at John Marble Park has attracted a steady crowd from May through September.

Charlie Hunsicker, the Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources director, hopes it now can make an even bigger splash.

Manatee County commissioners will consider improving the John Marble pool, located west of Lockwood Ridge Road on State Road 70, to make it a year-round operation, as part of their 2017 budget process.

“Here we are with an asset that with nominal improvements could be made a reliever for the G.T. Bray facility,” Hunsicker said, of the county’s only existing year-round, public pool.

The facility already offers seasonal open swim and lessons, private rentals and summer day camp and hosts the high school teams from Braden River and Southeast. Heating the pool and adding lights and starting blocks would allow the facility to host swim teams, lessons and clinics, after-school programs, scuba rentals and open swim year round.

Sarasota Tsunami Swim Team coach Ira Klein said adding another year-round swimming facility in Manatee County is important, not only to meet the needs of local swim teams, but also for offering swim lessons and promoting aquatic safety.

Sarasota County has at least a dozen pools that operate year-round and are available for swimming laps. The two largest, Sarasota YMCA and Arlington Park, have 52 lap lanes combined, compared with 36 total lanes available in Manatee County across five year-round swim facilities.

In Manatee County, only one facility, G.T. Bray Park, offers swimming to the public without some type of membership, Klein said.

“It’s important for the east side of Manatee County,” Klein said of transforming the John Marble pool into a year-round operation. “We have fewer pools. Even if we had the same number of pools, it’s still not enough.

“Three thousand, six hundred people drown a year in this country,” he said. “We need to provide avenues in every community for people to learn to swim. If we can get this pool up and running year round, you’ll be amazed at what this community can do.”

Adding to the need is the fact the Lakewood Ranch YMCA no longer will host a U.S. Swimming-sanctioned swim team. On April 22, the YMCA dismantled its USA Swimming-sanctioned swim team, The Blackfins, to offer a less competitive YMCA swim team more attractive to its overall membership.

The Lakewood Ranch Blackfins and Parrish YMCA have joined the Bradenton Barracudas, the Manatee YMCA’s Bradenton Branch swim team, as members of the Suncoast Swim League.

To make John Marble pool a year-round facility, the county would have to invest about $147,000 to heat the pool, add lighting and add starting blocks. The improvements can be paid for through impact fees, but the $151,000 for staffing and operating the facility would have to come out of the county’s general fund.

Hunsicker said the facility could likely bring in an estimated $43,000 in revenues from swim teams, after-school programs and private camps, out-of-state college swim rentals and year-round swim lessons. The out-of-pocket annual expenses would be more like $108,000.

The parks and natural resources department sees even more opportunity. Ultimately, it would like to phase in additional improvements. The next round would be a zero-entry bathing area, larger pool deck, shade structures, a restroom and office expansion and three picnic pavilions, costing around $600,000 in total.

Future considerations could include a splash park.

“There’s room for this type of recreational activity,” Hunsicker said. “It’s unique among itself. Aquatics in Florida needs to be front and center.”

Manatee County is working to develop a master parks plan. Although in preliminary stages, it will include another pool in the East County area and in Parrish, Hunsicker said.