Out with the pool, in with the splash pad.
That's the plan for Peoria's Lakeview Park. The park district received news of a $600,000 grant for the project from the state's Open Space Land Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) program this week.
Emily Cahill is executive director of the Peoria Park District. She said the plan is to demolish the current pool and open up the site as green space, offering visual and physical access to the Owens Recreation Center. The splash pad will go elsewhere in the park.
"In 2016, when we closed the pool, we knew that we needed to do something in this part of the community. And a splash pad has been certainly on our wish list," Cahill said. "And we've been looking at it and trying to allocate funds over the course of a couple of years in our bond issue process. And this grant from the state allows us to get this done."
There are environmental and practical reasons to opt for a splash pad over a new pool, Cahill said.
"Splash pads are much easier to maintain. They're much easier to operate. You don't have a lifeguard on duty. It's something that the water turns on and off when people are there and either push the button or it's motion activated," she said.
As a comparison, Cahill said the budget for the Gwynn Family Aquatic Center could probably fund up to eight splash pads. She said that's a direction the park district needs to take for some spaces, but that's not to say splash pads will entirely supplant the traditional pool.
"Pools certainly have a role. And they're an important part of a community. We also believe that splash pads are an important part of our community because they do give people water access," she said. "It's a longer season that you can have a splash pad turned on, it's longer hours that people can access it every day. It just has much more really flexible use than a pool does."
The OSLAD grant will also fund playground improvements and construction of a new public restroom at Lakeview Park.
A separate $255,000 OSLAD grant will allow the Peoria Park District to acquire a 40-acre parcel to extend the 9.1 mileIllinois River Bluff hiking trail.
"This 40-acre parcel is actually a really critical piece in our puzzle to make a continuous trail from south to north along the Illinois River Valley," Cahill said. She said the new land tract makes a big dent in the current gap.
The park district maintains more than 60 miles of trails, but Cahill said this trail presents a unique ecotourism opportunity.
"This is something though that would be just really, really unique in our system, to have that sort of a natural setting trail that goes from basically one end of the community to the other," she said.
