New info suggests PP&R pool restoration estimate is inflated
By Mark Kirchmeier
The Portland Bureau of Parks & Recreation’s top management has supported demolishing Columbia Park Pool, citing a bureau estimate that it would cost $21.5 million to convert it into a seasonal pool. But a new independent study appears to show that restoration could cost only half that.
A North Portland pro-pool coalition and several N/NE Portland city councilors persuaded the Parks Bureau in January to commission Convergence Architecture to do an independent investigation of pool restoration costs. Convergence completed the report May 15.
Six weeks later, as of the North Peninsula Review’s press deadline, the Parks Bureau has yet to release the report to the public.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any more info, but we should expect more at the end of the month or during July,” Parks spokesperson Mark Ross emailed June 23.
Meanwhile, District 2 City Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney’s office reveals that he Convergence Report shows restoration costs could be as low as half of the PP&R’s figures. Pirtle-Guiney’s staffer Ella Hutcherson emailed, “In a high-level preview [of the Convergence document], it looks like the cost to restore the systems at the current pool, remove the outer wall and cap, and make some minor upgrades, would have a TOTAL cost of $10-15 million.”
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney added, “While I know it’s a long shot, I continue to believe that we must search for a solution to save Columbia Pool up until the eleventh-and-a-half hour. I’m looking forward to digging into the details of the report and learning about how it informs our next steps, and ensuring that information is shared with the full community.”
Columbia Pool advocates aren’t mincing words about PP&R’s tardiness. “The first thing that comes to mind is that the voters paid for the study. Isn’t it public record?” asked architect Jamin AAsum of AAssum Design, who co-authored a 2019 Friends of Columbia Park (FOCP) facilities study that showed the Parks Bureau failed to adequately maintain and protect the pool. The same study identified a 2019 internal PP&R report showing that Columbia Pool could have been repaired then for $4.425 million.
“It seems like purposeful obstruction to not release a report,” AAsum added. “There could be time-critical information in the report; that means something is being compromised by waiting. They [PP&R] should have the building ventilating in the summer months to save the structure like they did last year,” he said.
“Fiscally irresponsible at best, past leaders squandered a valuable resource by neglecting routine maintenance,” said architect Chris Forney who also worked on the FOCP 2019 study. “650,000 Portlanders are served for nine months of the year by only four year-round indoor pools [Columbia Pool was an important 5th but neglected-until-closure]. It’s worthwhile to request expanding Convergence’s study scope to include what the additional cost would be to restore the pool to year-round indoor use.”
Forney asked, “If PP&R decides to demolish the building – what’s the plan? Leave a gaping hole in one of America’s few Olmstead-planned parks? Start a new process from scratch for how to fill that gap? How much will that cost?”
FOCP chair Chris Manno concluded, “We’re disappointed by the recent lack of transparency coming from PP&R. This is not the way any community group should be treated. When doors are slammed in their face, communities lose faith”.
The writer is a longtime Friends of Columbia Park board member.
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