One of the city’s most historic parks is getting a million-dollar face-lift.
Or at least its pool area is.
The City Council on Tuesday approved a $1.7 million contract to renovate the two pools at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Central Long Beach.
With approval, construction should start in December and take six months to complete, but officials hope to close the pools for only three months of that stretch. They’re typically open year-round.
Construction will be contracted through National Pools Inc, a company based in Sylmar, Calif., which was chosen out of a 27-applicant pool.
Public Works Director Eric Lopez said the two indoor pools have gone years without replacement and need to be replastered. Additionally, they’ve been plagued with bad pipes, crumbling concrete and other problems typical to the ravages of time.
Councilmember Suely Saro, whose district encompasses the park, said the pools are used by residents citywide, for various events and city programming.
“I’m just so excited that we’ll have new pools,” Saro said. “It’s going to have lights, it’s not going to look like you’re in Freddy Krueger because it’s not going to be creepy and dark anymore.”
“Tom (Modica), have you ever heard a Freddy Krueger reference in a city council item before,” Mayor Rex Richardson quipped to the City Manager.
Lopez said the renewed facility will come with new lighting, re-painting and renovations to its diving stands and boards, among other fixes.
The project is funded with $1 million in Measure A bond money — which is borrowed against future sales tax proceeds — and another $720,000 in reallocated bond money from the Martin Luther King Jr. vision implementation funds currently appropriated in the Capital Projects Fund Group in the city’s Public Works Department.
It’s part of the city’s vision plan for the park, a $10 million project road map that includes the possibility of new basketball courts, restrooms, amphitheater and other amenities for the nine-acre plot.