KAILUA-KONA — Work is progressing at Kona Community Aquatics Center and the facility remains on target to reopen in mid-October.
Contractor Aquatic Solutions Hawaii LLC is currently working on the 25-year-old facility’s keiki pool and preparing to install the new sand filtration system after all of the components arrived on island a few weeks ago. If all goes as planned, the contractor should be done around the beginning of October at which point Hawaii County Department of Parks and Recreation staff will move-in to give the place a little more TLC.
“Our departmental maintenance people will be going in, giving this place a deep clean. And, we’ll also be repainting a large portion of the facility,” said P&R Deputy Director Maurice Messina. “Once that’s complete we expect to open the facility around mid-October.”
The pool, which is Hawaii County’s most used aquatic facility, has been closed to the public since the March 1 failure of its sand filtration system. The system is what keeps the water clean in both the adult Olympic-size and smaller keiki pools.
County officials have said since that time repairs would take six to seven months, or until about September or October. Last month, when questioned about concern over the pool not being open ahead of the Ironman World Championship on Oct. 12, Messina stated the county was “more concerned about getting this pool back open to the public, and as soon as we can get it open, we will get it open.”
Aquatic Solutions Hawaii was awarded the $243,550, 125-day contract to replace the sand filtration system and conduct other repairs to the facility in late May. Physical work at the site proceeded slowly as each of the system’s five filters had to be manufactured specifically for the Kona pool before being shipped from the mainland to Hawaii Island for installation.
During the downtime, county workers have been making in-house repairs to include working on the hot-water heater, tiling, and gutter repairs, among others. A fresh coat of paint is to come.
“I just want to reiterate that the timetable is still mid-October, and we see no reason, at this time, that that timetable would have to be pushed back,” Messina said Tuesday afternoon.
The nearest county pool to Kona Community Aquatics Center is located about a dozen miles away at the Konawaena Pool in Kealakekua.
Fall public hours for Konawaena Pool are from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a closure from noon to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a closure from noon to 12:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The pool was closed Monday and Tuesday this week for staff training. Upcoming closures are planned Sept. 23 and Oct. 21 for maintenance.