An addition to the agenda which was accepted at the start of Thursday’s Town Board meeting was a request from Art Williams to renovate the interior of the pool house at the Rec Park.
Recreation Director Lester Norris said the Town had been approached by Williams who offered funding to renovate the interior of the pool house including the foyer, dressing rooms, and office area.
Norris said the renovation will be extensive and will be on the same footprint.
“It will include leveling and tiling the floor, tiling walls and showers, replacing lockers, lighting, interior and exit doors, counters, sinks and repainting the ceilings in the dressing rooms,” he said. “In the office area, it will encompass tiling the floor and the base of the walls – we found some rot in the wall and that will corrected.”
In addition, in the office area, a new granite countertop at the check-in station will be installed as well as new cabinets, lifeguard lockers, storage shelving and lighting, painting and the addition of a kitchenette.
Norris said he expects the work to begin in January and to take two to three months. There will be some interruptions, but he said the plan is to keep the pool open as much as possible.
“We will do one dressing room at a time and the other will be shared or the men may have to go next door,” he said. “This is still a plan in process because it came up so quickly. We are still ironing out the details.”
Norris requested approval by the Town Board that night as Williams wanted the money allocated by the end of the year.
“We need to send the Williams Foundation a request for the donation in the amount of $232,127.50, before the end of the year for tax purposes,” he said.
This adds another to the long list of donations Art and Angela Williams have made to the town’s Recreation Department including funding for K-H Founders Park, the ice rink, the town’s ball field, renovations to the interior of the civic building as well as the covered pool, to name a few.
Commissioners unanimously accepted the donation.
By Kim Lewicki, Highlands Newspaper