Remove ImagesGrimsley Pool Tossed Lifeline
January 24, 2013
A new report by S&ME Inc. environmental engineers of Raleigh shows that the indoor pool at Grimsley High School could be repaired cheaply and put back into service quickly, according to the pool's supporters.
The S&ME report contradicts an earlier city-sponsored analysis of the structure by Sutton-Kennerly & Associates, which reported to the City of Greensboro, which owns the pool, that the entire structure of the pool and surrounding building is compromised by ongoing subsidence, or sinking, due to poor quality soil under the foundation.
The indoor pool was closed on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 2011, after a windstorm sheared off part of the metal roof of the pool building – but the pool was maintained and useable, although unused, until three months ago, when the city ran out of water-purifying chemicals and stopped filtering the pool's water.
Sutton-Kennerly on Oct. 26, 2012 gave Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department staff members four options on the pool: fixing it to extend its life for up to 15 years for $4.9 million; building a new pool on the site for $4.3 million; building a new pool on a different site for $4.4 million; or simply demolishing the building and pool for $375,000.
The Greensboro City Council is considering whether to repair, demolish or replace the pool, but Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins said he supports demolition and expects his fellow councilmembers to do the same. And parks and recreation staff members recommended demolition to the City Council.
Don Gilchrist, president of the Greensboro Swimming Association and the parent of a Grimsley student, said the new S&ME report contradicts the Sutton-Kennerly report and shows that the pool could be fixed by driving more pilings at the southeast corner of the pool and repairing cracks in the southern and western walls of the pool building – all for a small fraction of what Sutton-Kennerly estimated it would cost to repair the pool.
At an Oct. 26 work session, Gilchrist and others who support saving the pool presented the city with three options not suggested by Sutton-Kennerly, with cost estimates from contractors.
One alternative involved reinforcing the walls of the building using "shotcrete," a kind of concrete applied to walls through a hose, sprayed over a metal frame. The new walls then take over the load bearing work of the damaged walls. The estimated cost was $800,000, but both sides agreed the shotcrete would add too much weight to the walls.
The second alternative was to demolish three walls and the roof of the existing building, and construct a "membrane" structure in its place out of fabric stretched over a steel frame at a cost of $300,000 to $400,000, plus $375,000 for removing the three walls and the roof.
The third alternative was to demolish three walls and the roof and replace them with an insulated metal building for about $715,000.
Gilchrist said those figures were all well below Sutton-Kennerly's $4.9 million because his group wants to simply get the pool back in use.
"They've been hesitant because they don't want a small project," he said of Sutton-Kennerly. "They want a big project, in my opinion."
Gilchrist says the S&ME report supports a new alternative – driving more piles to prevent further settling of the southeast corner and repairing the walls. He said the south wall of the building, which is cracked, is load bearing and would require support, but the west wall, which is not load bearing, could merely be re-mortared.
"Yes, it would be a fourth alternative, which would be drive the piers and fix the walls," Gilchrist said. "Period."
The Sutton-Kennerly report was partly based on the idea that Sutton-Kennerly, and the city, didn't really know what was under the foundation of the pool. Anything could be under there, the company reasoned, even a creek undermining the foundation.
S&ME took numerous borings, and found nothing but compacted and uncompacted fill materials placed during the construction of the pool.
"The fill materials were typically underlain by competent residual soils derived from in place weathering of parent rock," S&ME reported. "The SPT and DCP values of the residual soils indicate that the residual soils would not settle appreciable [sic] under the loads associated with the pool enclosure structure."
S&ME found that the southeast corner of the pool had settled by four inches since the pool was built in 1975 – but that the settling had reached a state of balance with the support of the foundation. In other words, that the corner was unlikely to settle further and the foundation didn't need to be rebuilt.
S&M recommended driving "compacted aggregate piers" – columns of compressed stone – to support the pool. Gilchrist said that would be relatively inexpensive and would allow the walls to be repaired without major changes.
Gilchrist said the $4.9 million Sutton-Kennerly proposal would have involved making the pool "perfect" – expanding locker rooms, bringing the pool up to the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act, deepening the pool and adding humidity controls. He said his group's proposal, based on the S&ME report, would allow the pool to be fixed without all those changes.
"We told the City Council that plan should not even be considered," he said. "We as taxpayers shouldn't even have to put up with it."
Sutton-Kennerly has for years recommended that World War Memorial Stadium be demolished. A second opinion from engineers associated with NC A&T State University has led the city to work to restore, rather than destroy, the historic war memorial.
The deed to the land for the pool the school system sold to Greensboro for $10 in 1975, as well as the shared-use agreement drawn up the same year, give the city the responsibility of maintaining the pool, apparently in perpetuity, since there is no end date for the agreement. The city hasn't done so. The deed specifies that, if the land is ever not used for a swimming pool, or if the city stops maintaining it, ownership of the property reverts to the school system.
A Feb. 4, 1975 shared-use agreement, titled "Joint City-School Agreement for Swimming Facilities" and covering the construction and maintenance of the Grimsley pool and one at Smith High School, as well as the shared-use provisions, requires the school system to build and maintain the Smith swimming pool and the city to build and maintain the Grimsley swimming pool.
Gilchrist said there are two upcoming meetings on the Grimsley pool: one including his group, school system and city representatives and engineers, and a second, scheduled for 7 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 24 in the Grimsley media center, for the public.