Visitors to Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Central Long Beach can now splash around in a renovated swimming pool.
Renovations to the main pool and learning pool included new lights, repairs to the deck, refreshed plaster and tile depth markers, battery-powered ADA-compliant pool lifts and upgrades to the pool’s circulation, filtration and chemical systems, according to the city.
“This is awesome,” said Darrius Bouyer, whose 6-year-old son, Jagger, was among the first to take swim lessons in the reopened pool.
The $1.7 million project began in early February and wrapped on June 13.
“What better way to kick off the summer than open up a new pool?” Mayor Rex Richardson said at a ribbon-cutting on Monday.
Councilmember Suely Saro, who represents the 6th District, said renovating the pool “has been a long overdue investment.”
When the City Council approved the project last October, she described the pool as “creepy and dark,” saying it needed the new lighting to avoid looking like something out of a horror movie.
Stephen Topsy-Elvord, whose mother Doris Topsy-Elvord represented the 6th District from 1992 to 2000, also attended the ribbon-cutting Monday.
“This is gorgeous,” Stephen Topsy-Elvord said.
Doris Topsy-Elvord, also known as “Mother Doris,” was the first African American woman to serve on the Long Beach City Council.
She “laid the groundwork” for the city to build a shade structure over the pool in 1996, said Cecile Harris Walters, Doris’ former chief of staff.
In 2021, the City Council approved naming the community center at Houghton Park in North Long Beach after Doris Topsy-Elvord.
The pool renovation project is part of the city’s vision plan for the park, a project road map that includes the possibility of new basketball courts, restrooms, amphitheater and other amenities for the nine-acre plot.
In February 2024, the city completed the first phase of renovations to the pool facility. Those fixes, costing $150,000 in Measure A sales tax funds, included new plumbing in the bathrooms, repairs to discolored drywall in both locker rooms and new coats of paint on doors and near windows throughout the facility, according to the city.
More information on the pool’s swimming hours is available here.