By: K. Michelle Moran | Grosse Pointe Times | Published March 5, 2024
GROSSE POINTE WOODS — It might seem like it’s too early to think about swimming, but Grosse Pointe Woods officials are already planning on repairs to the main pool at Lake Front Park.
The main pool liner is “going to need to be replaced,” Director of Public Services James Kowalski said during a Woods City Council Committee of the Whole meeting Jan. 22. He said a pool liner typically lasts about 10 to 12 years and theirs is 16 years old.
“It’s starting to peel away from the walls a little bit,” Kowalski told the council. “We’re getting some water leakage” because of the age of the liner.
The Woods City Council unanimously approved a quote from Linden, Michigan-based K Construction during a meeting Feb. 5 to do the work for $328,098; approval came as part of a vote in favor of the consent agenda. In a memo to City Administrator Frank Schulte, Kowalski wrote that K Construction is “the only known installer in the State of Michigan to install commercial liners of the magnitude and scope of the main pool,” which is why the project wasn’t bid out.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Mayor Arthur Bryant said Jan. 22 of the proposal. “It does seem expensive.”
This expenditure isn’t in the 2023 to 2024 fiscal year budget, so it will need to be paid for by transferring money from reserve fund balance, officials said.
“The lead time is six months,” Schulte said Jan. 22. This means that the city needed to order the liner now in order to be able to get it and install it after the pool closes for the summer on Labor Day weekend. There’s also a nationwide shortage of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which is used to make the liner.
Kowalski said the new liner means the lights under the water will be gone.
“They hadn’t worked in years,” said Schulte, adding that they will probably put plates over them.