New Underwood Pools Design Gets A Mixed Review By Public

Joe Ruggiero said he takes his young children from their Washington Street home to Belmont's historic Underwood Pool, the "swimming pond" that generations of  residents have used to spend long, hot days and learn to swim over the past 102 summers.

Yet as he stood before the microphone at the public meeting held on Thursday, Jan. 16, the 13-year resident looked at the blueprints presented by architects to question the need for a new pool at its current price tag.

"Everyone likes the pool but it's used at the most 90 days a year if there is good weather. It's a lot of money," he said. In this day and age, Ruggiero questioned, "there is better ways to use $5 million." 

Yet for a majority of the 50 residents at the Belmont Public Library Thursday night, the schematic designs presented by project architect Bargmann Hendrie and Archetype provided the right number of amenities to where they agreed with Anne Paulsen, chair of the Underwood Pool Building Committee, who said the new design "is ever more efficient and really speak to the needs of the community … which they expressed over and over again."

The design team's blueprint (see design schematics on this page) has come up with provides a pair of pools and three support buildings to replace the threadbare facility the Underwood family presented to the town in 1912 – three months after the sinking of the Titanic – for the benefit of the town's children.

While the new pools have less square footage then the existing oval, "it will have more usable space," said Thomas Scarlata, the project's lead architect, as the current pool has too many shallow sections.

The pool closest to the Belmont Public Library will have a one-meter diving board and six 25 yard lanes that can be used for swim meets. This pool will have its own bathhouse/changing area along with a lifeguards break room.

The inclusion of the competitive lane pool led to a suggestion from Louise Road's 
Adriana Poole and others if a popular "bubble dome" – a light, air-supported structure that is used over pools in the region – could be placed over the lanes to allow for near year round swimming practice.

While Paulsen said such a flexible structure is not part of the current design, architect Scarlata said putting in place infrastructure for a dome – including anchors and updating the nearby bathhouse to be heated – is possible now or in the future.

The other pool will be for toddlers and young children who are not ready for the deep end but are too old to be the youngest guests. There will be a shaded "underwater" bench in the middle allowing adults to sit in the water as they watch over their children or read a book. This pool will have water sprays and pop-up jets along with a water slide. 

The Cottage Street side will also have the main entrance (along with a concessions/vending area) at the edge of the drop off/parking lot – another drop off site will be on Concord Avenue – where the main bathhouse is located with family- and single-changing rooms what will have a toilet. The other building will house the filtration systems along with a pair of restrooms. 

The need for two buildings was prompted by the "tremendous amounts of sinks and pipes" needed to support the state regulation for toilets required for the foot print of the new pools.

Each bathhouse will be designed to accept a great deal of natural light with slanted roofs for the inclusion of solar panels to reduce electrical demand, said Scarlata. 

Because the design relies on the majority of patrons using Concord Avenue and the Wellington School for parking, an emphasis on creating a usable sidewalk on the pool side of Cottage Street, behind the existing screen of trees running along the road, said Kyle Zick, landscape architect with KZLA. The trees will also provide screening for Cottage Street residents.

The design not only won praise from most residents at the meeting, the chair of the Belmont Board of Selectmen, Mark Paolillo, noted that the board was "100 percent behind this plan" with the knowledge that the project will need to be paid for with a debt exclusion voted by the residents.

Under a plan first discussed this past fall, the proposed $4.5 million tab for a new pool facility will be split between a $2 million grant from the town's Community Preservation Committee – which will need to be approved by a majority of annual Town Meeting representatives in May – and the remainder from debt issued by the town and paid by property owners. 

"We are in a dire need of a new facility," said Paolillo, reiterating the likelihood that state and town departments of public health will be unlikely to grant exemptions to safety and health regulations the existing pool will need to open in June if the town does not have a new facility in the offing. 

The Board of Selectmen is scheduled to meet with the Building Committee on a recommendation to accept the design on Jan. 27. 

"We are under the gun," admitted Paulsen, noting that the design and a debt exclusion will need to be approved soon to make the Town Election ballot for April and the May Town Meeting. 

If the town voters and Town Meeting reps approve the financing, then construction will begin in September with a completion date of the new pool of June 2015.

But Ruggiero, an executive vice president of a development company who calls himself "a long-time construction guy," questions the math on what the final amount of the debt.

"They haven't counted for escalation (of costs) so this figure is not right," said Ruggiero. "In the end, it's not a $4.5 million project, it will be closer to a $5 to $6 million project." 

"If you're going to ask me to raise my taxes by $5 million, I think it should be paid for the pool at the high school," said Ruggiero, referring to the Higginbottom Pool, that has been closed for nearly a month due to pump and then electrical problems.

Paulsen said she and the committee understands that residents such as Ruggiero are concerned about the possibility of higher expenses.

"But we are going to try to stick with [$4.5 million]," said Paulsen. 

"Will it be $5 over or $5 under, a little over or under? We don't know," she told Belmont Patch.

"But remember, we got that estimate from Bargmann Hendrie and Archetype when they did the feasibility study last year. And we hired them because they could bring it in at that price and as far as I know, there are no surprises," said Paulsen. 

"But if people start adding a bubble dome or other amenities, then you can be sure it will cost more than we are telling people," she said.