Can the pool at Ligonier Beach be saved? Township spending $100K to find out

Is it feasible to reopen Ligonier Beach as a swimming pool?

Ligonier Township officials may know before Mackin Engineers & Consultants finishes a master plan for the former resort.

The Pittsburgh-based consultant indicated it should be able to advise the township before the plan is done whether it’s feasible to rehabilitate and reopen the property’s shuttered 1.3 million-gallon swimming pool.

Agreeing with a recommendation from the Ligonier Beach Park study committee, township supervisors last week selected Mackin to complete the master plan and pool study at a cost of $100,000.

Township Manager Michael Strelic said a contract with Mackin won’t be finalized until it is reviewed by officials with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which is providing half of the $100,000 in funding for the effort. A matching amount was raised by local organization Friends of Ligonier Beach.

The township received six bids from firms interested in the consulting job — ranging from $89,000 submitted by Aquatic Facility Design, a Dauphin County firm that conducted a previous limited study of the pool structure, to about $137,700 from Pittsburgh-based D.K. Lawrence & Design Studios.

In a letter to the supervisors, study committee chairperson Janell Emery approved of Mackin’s proposal for a “Go/No Go” meeting with the committee at the mid-point of the pool study, “to determine whether the renovation and rehabilitation of the existing pool structure is viable or if a new concept is necessary.”

Mackin has estimated it could have that analysis ready as soon as three months after beginning work on the study.

Mackin plans to use two consultants:

• Wallover Architects, which has more than 30 years of experience designing pools and water parks across the country;

• James Watenpool, who has more than 50 years of experience in parks and recreation management, programming, maintenance and operations.

Emery said the study committee additionally recommended Mackin because its proposal was clear, easy to follow and well-planned.

She said the consultant presented “a robust public input strategy” that calls for four public meetings, five meetings with the study committee and interviews with as many as 20 key stakeholders.

“Their costs were linked to tasks and appropriately weighted for public participation, the swimming pool feasibility study and design considerations,” Emery wrote of Mackin.

Strelic said some elements of the pool study and master planning effort likely will occur together, including public input opportunities.

“If the pool is structurally sound and it can move forward, we’ll ask people if they’d go to the pool and, at the same time, we might also ask them if they’d go there to play pickleball,” Strelic said.

The township bought the 10-acre Ligonier Beach property for $230,000 after the resort closed in 2018 along Route 30 east of Ligonier Borough. It originally opened in 1925 as the Ligonier Valley Bathing Beach.

The supervisors in January voted to return $42,500 the township had received from the state to assist with a previously planned project at Ligonier Beach. That project called for developing a walkway and kayak launch to improve access to adjacent Loyalhanna Creek.

Addressing liability concerns voiced by some supervisors, Strelic said he paid $146 for plastic construction fencing and instructed township crews to use it to replace similar fencing that became dislodged around open pits that remain from demolition of the pool’s former filter house and pump house.

Market concerns addressed

The township also has agreed to install permanent signs to prohibit parking along the north berm of Old Lincoln Highway near the Ligonier Country Market site, Strelic said.

The improved signs will replace paper signs that had been placed along the road. Strelic said officials were concerned when some motorists arriving at the popular Saturday morning market parked their cars on the paved surface of the narrow road, impeding access.

Vehicles may continue to park off the road along its south berm, he said.

Strelic said the market operators, consulting with the Ligonier Valley Police Department, have taken action to address concern over the potential clash of vehicular and pedestrian traffic at the event entrance along Springer Road.

The pedestrian entrance has been shifted about 10 feet south, closer to Main Street’s extension from adjacent Ligonier Borough.

“That was a good idea,” Strelic said. “That’s one less point where pedestrians and cars are crossing each other.”