“You said you were expecting a smaller meeting,” a Hill resident in the front row told Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) Chief of External Affairs Tommie Jones. “I hope this gives you some sense of how loved Rumsey Pool is and by how many.”
Jones was hosting the meeting that kicked off the design process for a new William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center (635 N. Carolina Ave. SE). About 150 people packed the North Hall at Eastern Market (225 Seventh St. SE) Thursday, Dec. 19 to hear about the process and offer their views.
“This is a once-in-a-generation-opportunity,” said Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen (D) who helped secure the $37 million budget for the project. The facility will be replaced by a two-story structure that includes the pool, locker rooms and a second floor of community-serving space that has not yet been defined.
But the building can not be all things for all people, Allen cautioned. “Discretion is haveing the ability to say no to a good idea,” he told the crowd.
Project managers took notes as residents attending the meeting offered their suggestions and observations. Some asked DPR to consider using an disinfectant other than chlorine. DeSean Jones said he is a fifth-generation of the pool. He attended the meeting with his 8-year-old daughter, DeMirah, herself an avid swimmer (“I want to be in a pool now,” she said after the meeting).
The elder Jones said he had worked at the pool in the 1990s. He could when the pool had a high dive, since removed. He said that DPR had applied some “band aid fixes” to carry the pool through to the next design. “But I do have confidence in DC acting on our ideas,” he said. Jones asked that the team preserve the number of 25-yard lanes –or increase them.
Others asked DC DPR to consider a separate pool to allow for temperature regulation for lap swimmers and others doing water aerobics or walking. One encouraged the design team to come to the pool while it is in use to see the scheduled activities and the way the staff sets up the pool for multiple, often simultaneous, uses.
DeSean Jones and Tommie Jones, the DPR representative, both suggested that the pool include some memorialization of the unique Black History of the facility. Opened in 1970, the pool was renamed for William H. Rumsey, a Director of DC DPR who founded the first Black History invitation swim meet at the pool, then the “Capitol East Natatorium” in 1987.
Residents also asked the team to consider future maintenance as they planned features. One proposed that money be taken from the construction budget and applied to future maintenance. “You say ‘state of the art’ and all I hear is ‘that’s going to break,” another neighbor told the team. “I want features that will work even after a rock is thrown at them.”
Jones said the team would be sending a digital survey in early 2025, likely in early February. That data would be used to create initial concepts expected to presented at the next community meeting, which is not yet scheduled. There are expected to be a total of 4 to 5 community meetings on the design.
Representatives from DC Waves, the District swim team, emphasized that they would like to be based out of Rumsey for as long as possible before demolition, rather than having to travel great distances while the building sits unused and shuttered.
The design process is expected to last a year to 18 months, during which time the pool will remain open for use. It will close sometime in early 2027 for demolition and then construction of the new facility. Allen said folks could loosely expect a ribbon cutting in early 2027.
DPR also assured residents that maintenance would continue on the pool for the last year it will be in use. One resident commented that while she appreciates and anticipates the new pool, the ADA access button on the current building door has been broken for two years, making it difficult for her to get in the building. “If you would fix that for me,” she said, “I’ll wait for everything else.”
See slides from the meeting and follow the renovation at https://dgs.dc.gov/page/rumsey-aquatic-center.
