Renovations begin at Columbia’s Activity & Recreation Center
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Work to improve Columbia's Activity and Recreation Center has started.
Westport Pools, LLC. broke ground on the project at the ARC on Tuesday.
The Columbia City Council approved a project budget of $275,000 in January 2023. According to Columbia Parks and Recreation, the construction will include a new water zone play structure and updated showers in the locker rooms.
Cavelle Cole-Neal, the ARC's Recreation and Community Program Superintendent, tells ABC 17 they're looking forward to the new updates.
"We're just excited about getting a new play structure in the water area. It's giving us an opportunity to do some much needed work in terms of replacing some of that flooring... reducing pool usage kind of limits some of our uses to our locker room so we can do some work in there at the same time," said Cole-Neal.
As a result of the renovations, city officials say the ARC Water Zone will close from Tuesday until Sept. 3, but they don't want that to affect people's summer fun.
Gabe Huffington, the Columbia Parks and Rec Director, says ARC members can swipe their membership cards for entry at any of the city's public outdoor pools including Albert-Oakland Family Aquatic Center, Lake of the Woods Pool and Douglass Family Aquatic Center.
"We worked very closely to set up the ability for them to go to our outdoor pools using their ARC membership, and so thats been helpful. We've been able to transition those classes such as swim lessons and water aerobics to our outdoor pools throughout the summer."
Extended hours will also be available at the Hickman High School pool.
ARC Superintendent Cole-Neal says the public transition has been positive and smooth so far.
"We saw a really busy opening day out of our Oakland pool over memorial day weekend. the process of using your arc membership went over well. We were able to get everybody who has an ARC membership in without any major issue."
Columbia Parks and Recreation also told ABC 17 the public can expect renovations in the future to Douglas Family Aquatic Center, Albert Oakland Pool, and the Lake of the Woods Pool.
