City council to put some finality on decisions surrounding Memorial Pool this week

Grandview Emerson Neighborhood Asso. spokesman 
believes pool should stay in its neighborhood

The direction into replacing Memorial Pool could have some finality to it this week from the La Crosse city council.

Thursday, the council votes on, essentially, whether to put the new pool on the site of the old one at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Keeping the location in the Grandview-Emerson neighborhood seemed like a good plan to Jacob Sciammas, from the Grandview Emerson Neighborhood Association. A council committee pushed that agenda last week.

The city hired an outside consultant to study the best locations for a new pool in La Crosse. The top site picked wast at Forest Hills Golf Club. The fourth choice out of seven by the consultant, was at the Memorial Pool site – chosen fourth mostly because of its location.

“Large community of people who have been working a really long time, continue making progress and can start asking the community to be generous in a financial way to help this city make this project a reality,” Sciammas said Monday. “One of the difficult parts of this job, up to now, is looking at all the nice features of our community that pools in different locations and different types, would offer.”

The pool has been disputed and studied for months — anything from where it should be to what it should be or how much it should cost. Multiple studies have been conducted. A lot of the ongoing debate can be read here.

One of the questions still remaining is whether the Memorial Pool will be a historic renovation or an all-new design.

In La Crosse, there are already two other pools – Erickson Pool (2.4 miles from Memorial’s location) and the North Side Community Pool (3.5 miles from Memorial’s location in the other direction). There are also outdoor pools in Onalaska (7.6 miles) and La Crescent (5.3 miles).