The Tukwila Pool will reopen at 5:45 a.m. Monday (Jan. 5) under new management – the Tukwila Pool Metropolitan Park District.
The pool was closed on Christmas Day so that city and park district staff could work to remove city-own owned equipment and then install the park district’s equipment, including new computer and telephone systems.
“I am very excited,” said Dave Perkins, the pool’s new aquatics manager. “It will be great to have the doors open at 5:45 on Monday.”
It will be the first chance for Perkins to meet pool patrons.
The pool next to Foster High School had been operated by the City of Tukwila since 2002. The city decided last year to transfer ownership and operation of the pool to the park district.
Pool users won’t see any changes in hours, programs or fees immediately. That means at 5:45 a.m., swimmers can swim laps, do vertical exercises and water walk.
What Perkins hopes that pool users see is plenty of improvements in the months to come.
“I’ll need to evaluate all the programs and see how they’re going before I make any definite changes,” he said, a process that might take two or three months.
He’ll also use the first months to decide whether his workload will require exploring the hiring of an assistant pool manager.
Head lifeguards also will take on more of a management role, he said.
The park district also will look for a new permanent executive director. Steven Burke was hired as a consultant to fill the position in the interim until a new executive director is hired.
“Our ultimate goal is to get as many people in the facility as possible,” Perkins said. “So we want to offer them programming that gets them into the facility.”
