RENOVATION REPORT: 1991 Mecklenburg Aquatic Center gets updated

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CHARLOTTE – A wag with an office in the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center has a “No Swimming” sign in his or her window.

Starting June 1, 2015, that sign – or one like it – will be posted on the front door of the 44,000-square foot building between East Martin Luther King Boulevard and East Stonewall Street along South McDowell Street.

It will be there for a year, unless, said James Alsop, division director of enterprise services of the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department, renovation work on the 1991 building is not completed on time.

Although a general contractor has not yet been selected in the county bidding process, and details are still a little sketchy, prep work has already begun by the Charlotte architecture firm LS3P Associates Ltd. and the St. Louis-based Counsilman-Hunsaker aquatic center design and engineering company.

But the taxpayers who will ultimately pay for the $8.6 million job, which Alsop said is scheduled to be funded by bonds, still have time to have their say: County Park and Rec officials and the designers and engineers will lead a community meeting about the project next month.

Although the details are still not complete, Alsop said the work will involve a mix of aesthetic improvements to the aging building, mostly to the interior; and upgrades in swimming pool technology, which has taken significant strides since the late 1980s, when the Aquatic Center was in the planning stages.

The work scheduled so far includes:

• Renovating and expanding the lobby and fitness area, locker rooms and shower rooms.
• Upgrading the mechanical, electrical and telecommunications systems, including the replacement of the filtration and pump works.
• Installing an updated ultraviolet disinfection system to replace the outdated one; ultraviolet light is used to help kill micro-organisms in order to keep adding skin- and eye-irritating chemicals to the water to a minimum.
• Upgrading the main and therapeutic pools’ gutter system technology to improve the airflow near the water’s surface to minimize airborne chloramines within breathing distance of swimmers’ lungs.
• Replacing the pool deck and the bottom of the pool.
• Installing new bulkheads – the movable walkways that are used to divide up the 50-meter by eight-lane competition-sized pool into smaller swimming areas.
• Adding more fixed seating along the sides of the pool; Alsop said the number is limited by fire codes.
• Making minor improvements to the exterior of decorative cinderblock building, “basically improving the aesthetics to the extent funding allows.”

Project: Renovating the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center, 800 Martin Luther King Blvd. in uptown Charlotte.

Projected dates closed: June 1, 2015-June 1, 2016.

Building stats: Opened in 1991 with 44,000 square feet and two pools: one competition sized and the other therapeutic.

Design and engineering work: Architect Sharon Huot of LS3P Associates Ltd. and the Counsilman-Hunsaker aquatic center design and engineering group.

Community meeting for public input: At 6 p.m. Sept. 10 at the Grady Cole Center, 310 N. Kings Drive in Charlotte.