Pulaski Public Pool and Pool House

New York

Nov 25

Written By Sustainable Digital

Location
Poughkeepsie, NY

Status
Completed

Construction Completion
2024

Site Area
3 acres

Construction Cost
$4M

People Served
32,010

Design Consultants
Saratoga Associates

Special Features
ADA accessible changing rooms and lifeguard station, splash pad spray play area, shaded lunch area

The Pulaski Pool House is a much beloved and desperately needed public recreational resource for the Northside Community in Poughkeepsie. Most of the kids and families who use the pool walk from The Martin Luther King Gardens, a 117-bedroom public housing unit across the street. The next closest public pool is 3 miles away.

Built in 1957, the 3,003 square-foot building had been closed to the public for many years. Sections of the roof were missing, and windows were filled with chicken wire instead of glass, allowing the building to sustain severe weather damage and mold to flourish. The shuttered and abandoned building was also covered with graffiti, creating a real eye sore in the neighborhood. In 2021, with once in a lifetime federal Covid relief funding in hand, the city finally demolished the decaying structure to construct a modern and ADA-accessible facility.

New City Parks (NCP) worked with the city to facilitate a community-led design process to shape upgrades to the entire pool complex and support the initial design. NCP introduced Saratoga Associates to the city, who completed the design for the renovation, incorporating community requests such as installing a splash pad inside the complex so that parents could watch multiple children playing in any area. Based on this vision, NCP helped secure a $500,000 Environmental Protection Fund grant from New York State to catalyze the eventual $4M pool house project.

The Pulaski Pool and Pool House re-opened to the public in early summer 2024, with families and kids in their bathing suits and swimmies at the ribbon cutting barely containing their excitement to jump into the pool and explore the new pool house facility. The new building includes a men’s changing room, a women’s changing room, family bathrooms, a lifeguard room, an office welcome desk, and storage and kitchen areas. In addition to the new splash pad, upgrades were made to the fencing and new lighting was installed.