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City Selects Firm To Design Wichita's New Pools, Splash Pads

City of Wichita
A concept plan for the new Harvest Pool.

Wichita City Council members on Tuesday approved a firm to design the water playgrounds that will replace several of the city’s pools.

A little more than $1 million is set aside in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan for the design phase of the Aquatics Master Plan. City leaders selected a Lenexa-based company to replace the pools at Aley, College Hill, Harvest and McAdams parks, and design the splash pads that will go up in the next few years to replacing the city’s other swimming pools. Splash pads will also be built at Harrison and Planeview parks.

Park and Recreation director Troy Houtman says Water’s Edge Aquatic Design can now start the process of evaluating each site, estimating costs and drawing up plans.

“And then the really important [step] is to go back out to the community and talk to the community about some of the ideas that we’re bringing forth, and see if that really builds in with consensus for each one of those communities," he says.

Each individual project will have to go before the council for approval.

The pool at McAdams Park was the first to close last year under the master plan. Amid criticism that the neighborhood was unfairly targeted, the city council approved an additional $4 million to build a new pool in District 1.

The city’s eight remaining pools will open for the season later this month.

Follow Nadya Faulx on Twitter @NadyaFaulx. To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Nadya Faulx is KMUW's Digital News Editor and Reporter, which means she splits her time between working on-air and working online, managing news on KMUW.org, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. She joined KMUW in 2015 after working for a newspaper in western North Dakota. Before that she was a diversity intern at NPR in Washington, D.C.