Closed now for a third summer due to construction delays, East Potomac Pool set to finally reopen in 2020

Construction of the new East Potomac Pool in Ward 2 is back on track, with the facility set to reopen next summer after a series of lengthy delays transformed an expected one-year timetable into a closure spanning three swim seasons. The project’s price tag, originally set at $12 million in DC’s fiscal 2017 capital budget, has climbed by $2 million, a 17 percent increase. 

East Potomac Pool was originally built as a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s and, according to a 2015 project design document submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, “the existing pool deck and structure … [was] deteriorating and [had] exceeded its building life cycle.” 

The original pool was beloved by locals as a hidden gem, accessible by car or a moderate walk — about 1.4 miles, much of it along the river — from either the Smithsonian or L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. It was also considered invaluable to swim teams as the only Olympic-sized outdoor pool in the District.

While East Potomac Park, where the pool is located, is operated by the National Park Service, East Potomac Pool is run by DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), which is partnering with the DC Department of General Services (DGS) on the pool’s reconstruction. 

For swimmers like Dawson Nash of the District of Columbia Aquatics Club (DCAC), summer is not quite the same without East Potomac Pool.

“We used to practice in the summertime here,” Nash said in an interview with The DC Line during a recent visit to the park. “We were hoping for it to be open this summer… It’s really nice to swim outdoors, and this is such a perfect location. … And while you’re swimming, you have the view of the Washington Monument and the planes go by.” 

The DCAC is an LGBT-friendly swimming and social club. Last summer, Nash traveled with the club to Paris where he competed in the Gay Games, an Olympics-style event. He won two gold medals in swimming.

Construction at East Potomac Pool was initially expected to be finished in time for a 2017 reopening, according to the website of a landscape architect associated with the project. A May 2017 comment on the DC Triathlon Club’s website says the city “surprised everyone by opening” the pool in summer 2016 after having announced it would be closed for renovations; instead, the pool was shut down after the 2016 swim season, though tweets from 2017 suggest that DPR hadn’t yet updated its website to make that clear.

As of May 2018, DPR was projecting the pool would reopen in summer 2019: “Is there an ETA for the completion of East Potomac?” Matthew Norris had tweeted. “I miss my outdoor Olympic length lap pool!”

In response to The DC Line’s inquiries this month, DGS officials attributed the delays to a series of unexpected obstacles, including several manholes found beneath the old pool and undocumented utility lines that run across the site. The facility is also in need of power upgrades and reconfiguration from Pepco. 

Heavy rains have caused additional setbacks. The $2 million in supplemental funding was granted to the project in order to help rectify these problems, DGS officials said. 

The Washington Channel, which separates East Potomac Park from The Wharf and Fort McNair, experienced flooding 21 times in 2018 compared to once in 2017 and twice in 2016. The crest of the 2018 flooding was 6.43 feet, just short of the level at which “a significant portion of East Potomac Park is flooded,” according to the National Weather Service. (The last time flooding surpassed 6.5 feet was March 2010.)

This spring, a DGS official provided a reader of the PoPville blog with the same rationale. An April 12 post quoted the official as saying the rain had complicated dewatering and excavation efforts and made additional shoring necessary to remove soil beneath the pool and the surrounding deck. Readers weren’t convinced, however, with one noting that no visible demolition or excavation work occurred in the first year after the facility’s closure — and another saying “it took four years to build the Hoover Dam.”

Jose Sueiro, a longtime DC activist and the managing director of the Metro DC Hispanic Contractors Association, expressed frustration on Twitter last summer about East Potomac Pool’s prolonged closure, getting no reply when he asked Mayor Muriel Bowser and DPR “why so little news” about the timetable for reopening. In an interview this week, he told The DC Line that he used to enjoy swimming in the Olympic-size pool with former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty. Sueiro, who found out this year that the pool would be closed for another summer when he headed over for a post-tennis match swim, speculated that DGS has not been forthcoming about all of the reasons for the delays.

“There’s something wrong,” Sueiro said. “There’s something going on. … For me, it’s inexcusable.”

Once completed, the “state-of-the-art” aquatic center in East Potomac Park will feature a new pool deck and a renovated pool house, according to information on the DGS website. The conceptual rendering posted there shows a 50-meter-long, 25-foot-wide pool with 3- and 5-meter diving platforms and 1- and 3-meter springboards.

According to the 2017 capital budget, the new facility will have a “useful life” of 30 years.

With many swimmers anxious to get into the water as soon as the new pool opens, DGS director Keith Anderson told The DC Line this month that his agency is “currently on track to meet the updated timeline.”

“It looks like they’re making progress here,” Nash said as he watched a construction crew work on a recent afternoon. “They could be finished by Memorial Day weekend of next year. I have my fingers crossed for that.”