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Board awards design contact for $5M pool

By Dan Casciato Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Mt. Lebanon school board voted 6-0 Monday night to award a $16,800 contract to James P. Goldman, an architect with a background in sports facilities, for consulting services associated with a $5 million swimming pool to be built across from the high school on Horsman Drive.

"This will help us better allocate the $5 million we have for the pool," school board member Jim Blazeck said. "It will be money very well-spent."

The school board also unanimously awarded a contract at 6.5 percent of the cost of construction to Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates to design the new pool. Board members Rene Garson, Jean Palcho and Carol Walton were not at the meeting.

"I have to question the amount this will cost," said Pinetree Road resident Paula Bongiorno, who has frequently criticized the proposal. "We have several drawings of the pool which have been presented previously. Is this contract really necessary?"

"What you've seen so far are conceptual drawings," responded school board member Joseph Rodella. "It's necessary to have a design with a much higher level of detail."

The lower level of the natatorium would house a 25-yard-by-25-meter pool with 10 lanes, while the upper level would contain rest rooms, locker rooms, bleachers and a community multipurpose room. The project is expected to go out to bid by the end of the year.

School officials want to replace the 51-year-old pool at the high school. Municipal officials had considered a joint project with the district to build a 50-meter pool that would serve both the school and community, but commissioners backed out of that plan in January because of the cost.

The school district had originally planned to pay for the pool from the funds of a $50 million bond issued in 2003 for capital improvement projects, which included the renovation of the elementary schools, but cost overruns on Hoover and Washington elementary schools will leave them $5 million short, school finance director Jan Klein said at a board meeting in February. The district would need to float a $5 million bond to cover the shortfall. The bond issue would require a 0.2-mill increase; however, the increase could take effect in the 2006-07 school budget, she said.


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