FORT WORTH, Texas — Labor Day typically marks the closure of the local public pool, ending a season serving as a meeting place and balm for the vicious Texas heat. Forest Park Pool is no different.
The newly renovated pool welcomed thousands of Fort Worth residents seeking relief from the summer sun. What sets Forest Park pool apart is that some of its most unique features were saved by concerned citizens and city staff committed to an idealistic vision for the pool, despite the extra costs.
After listening to feedback from residents in 2021, the city shifted its plan for a Forest Park pool, increasing the budget and preserving a unique 50-meter lap pool. After several years of construction, the reimagined Forest Park Pool opened its gates to the public and was met with a surge in popularity among Fort Worth residents.
“It’s right up there with our best years at Forest Park,” Corey Stuhmer, aquatics coordinator, said. “Many days we hit capacity and have a waiting line. So it's definitely been popular.”
Forest Park Pool is a historic asset in the city of Fort Worth. It opened in 1922 as a big bowl of water with a platform floating in the middle of the pool. Then, it was rebuilt in the 1960s with an Olympic-sized 50-meter pool and a diving well. It served an essential role for many Fort Worth natives. It was where they met up with friends, learned to swim and cooled off summer after summer.
This summer, it served the same purpose for Maya Sabic and Catherine Robinson, who were applying sunscreen under a tree on the outskirts of the pool. It was their second time visiting the pool that summer.
“We love having, finally, a community pool where you can bring your food and spend the day,” Maya Sabic said. “I have been waiting for it to open for a long time… for families that don’t have a pool at their house, don’t have a community pool, this is a godsend”
As time passed, the cost of maintaining the city’s seven pools increased and the city started to close many of its public pools. The closures, which were executed in 2014, left just the Forest Park pool in the south and the Marine Park pool in the North. Both of which also needed to be renovated.
“(Residents) want a place to be able to go and the whole family have something to enjoy, not just a hole in the ground filled with water,” Stuhmer said.
By 2021, the Forest Park pool built in the 1960s was past its useful life, and city staff proposed updating it through the 2022 bond election to bring it up to the national standard. For $7.5 million, Forest Park Pool would have a 25-meter lap pool, a leisure pool targeting children and a slide. However, the plan also sought to demolish the pool’s 50-meter lanes.
“Our pool consultants told us that was pretty much the national standard,” Scott Penn, senior capital projects officer with the Parks and Recreation Department, said.
But in the eyes of Richard Sybesma, Fort Worth’s plan to destroy the 50-meter lap was the straw that broke the camel's back. It reminded him of the time Fort Worth closed its five pools several years ago. He didn’t want history to repeat itself.
A 50-meter lap pool was one of the public pool’s defining characteristics, the only one of its kind in the region. It was also well-used by different swimming organizations, such as the TCU swim team and the Ridglea Masters, Sybesma said.
With just two public pools left in a city of nearly 1 million, the historic Forest Park pool was heading in a direction Sybesma didn’t like. Sybesma, who so happens to be the beloved long-time coach of the TCU swim team, quickly planned to express his opposition to the Forest Park Pool plan, and he wasn’t alone.
“The public just said we've had enough,” Sybesma said.
Sybesma and dozens of other residents regularly showed up to bond meetings and sent emails to elected officials and staff demanding the plan for Forest Park pool include a 50-meter lap pool.
“The city has always said pools never pay for themselves, well they don't in dollars and cents but they do in lives saved,” Sybesma said.
Forest Park Pool’s representative, Elizabeth Beck, heard the concerns of residents and asked staff to incorporate the 50-meter lap pool into the design for Forest Park. The result was a $11 million pool and a reimagined plan developed by staff that incorporated almost everything residents were asking for. In the end, the pool cost the city $15 million to renovate.
“The idea that they rethought what they were going to do… is a testament to the people who attended these meetings and actually were heard,” Sybesma said. “This is really close to my heart.”
In the end, the $124 million parks and recreation bond proposal passed with the support of 61% of voters.
“We understood the iconic nature of Forest Park pool and we had to go back to the residents and ask for more bond money and we ended up getting it,” Penn said. “I don't foresee any reason why it wouldn’t continue to be a well-accepted and well-loved amenity of the park system.”
Construction took a couple of years, but as summer 2024 arrived, Forest Park pool doors reopened to the public.
“I'm really amazed at how well they did the pool, how quickly they did the pool and the support from the city government,” Sybesma said. “I'm talking about the mayor, the council people, and the parks department. I don't know who this construction company is, but God Almighty, they did a great job.”
Tucked into the trees and a literal stone throw from the Fort Worth Zoo, the bathers languishing in the shade of the developed trees surrounding the pool expressed gratitude for the city’s investment in the pool.
“Having a 50-meter lap pool is such a massive amenity so I was really glad that they kept it,” Katie Meyers, a Fort Worth resident who swims laps weekly, said. “I don’t live in a community with a HOA and pools that I can go to, so I wouldn’t really have any other options.”
Beyond the gratitude of individual swimmers, Forest Park Pool has also seen an exciting surge in attendance.
When the pool first opened, Sybesma captured a video of lines stretching through the parking lot.
“The environment is great, it’s nice to have shade because of the hot weather,” Catherine Robinson, a Fort Worth resident, said. It was her and her family’s first time visiting a Fort Worth public pool. “We’ll come back.”
