City, swim club consider future of aquatics programs in Longview

Longview Metro Aquatics is a swim club out of water.

The swim club formed from two existing clubs about five years ago. At one time, the organization taught lessons for children and adults, with more than 100 students participating in the club swimming program.

Then COVID hit.

"It was kind of start over again," said Coach Jennifer "Bug" Lipp. Lipp's family came to Longview for her husband's job. She had coached at the Benbrook, Texas, YMCA, where her club of about 200 won multiple state champions. When she came to Longview, she agreed to coach the two local swim teams if they merged.

"It's been fantastic and beautiful and wonderful in so many ways, except for our pool situation," she said.

The organization doesn't have a pool of its own, and places where members can swim have dwindled. For that matter, overall pool access has vanished across East Texas in recent years.

As Lipp explains, lap pools that are maintained at the appropriate temperature for competitive swimming or that have enough lanes that are the appropriate size are hard to come by.

Pool challenges

The Longview Swim Center at Pine Tree High School, which has a lap pool and recreation pool, is in need of millions of dollars of repairs, and the city is studying options for that facility.

The city of Kilgore has a pool that's open during the summer months. Kilgore College closed its indoor pool four or five years ago. It hasn't yet decided what to do with the facility.

Some gyms and country clubs have outdoor recreational pools. Good Shepherd's Institute for Healthy Living has a four-lane lap pool and three therapeutic pools of different types. Longview Metro Aquatics did use the lap pool there for a while until it closed during renovations.

Kilgore College spokesman Chris Craddock said the pool was closed for several reasons: a small number of people using it, the difficulty of finding lifeguards and the high cost for chemicals and keeping the pool heated.

"Maintaining and replacing equipment became extremely expensive," Craddock said. "In the end, the usage levels did not justify the costs associated with keeping it operational."

LeTourneau University also closed its pool — where Longview Metro Aquatics was practicing — and is renovating it for other uses. It was in the university's Solheim Center. Various high school swim programs used the indoor pool for practice in the past, and swim meets were held there as well.

"It's hard to swim when you don't have a pool," Lipp said.

Her program has since landed at Longview ISD's Longview Aquatic Center on Hawkins Parkway.

"We do swim at Longview High School, but they have a swim team," she said. The district's middle school students swim in the morning; the high school team practices in the afternoon. That means Longview Metro Aquatics can't get into the pool until 5:30 p.m. Some of her students aren't getting home until 8:30 or 9 at night.

The pool also needs repairs. Those repairs were not included in Longview ISD's bond package presented to voters in November.

Wayne Guidry, Longview ISD's assistant superintendent for finance, said the district had committed to spending $3.5 million of district funds on the aquatic center if the bond had passed. The bond would have paid for other projects around the district.

"There's quite a bit that needs to be done," he said of the pool. Instead, the district will replace a boiler to keep the water warm and do some cosmetic work in the facility.

Other repairs will have to wait.

"It's going to sit in line with the other needs of the district until we pass a bond," Guidry said, adding that the indoor pool is low on the priority list.

"We're going to keep on swimming in it," he added.

A proponent of swimming, Guidry noted that Longview Metro Aquatics serves children from all over the area. Lipp said she operates the high school swim programs for several area schools through Longview Metro Aquatics.

Longview ISD has made a possible solution available to the organization: a lease of vacant property where Mozelle Johnston Elementary School once sat behind Judson Middle School.

"They have such a dire need for a pool. We're leasing some land to them so they can build an above ground pool for their club," Guidry said.

Lipp said that is an approximately $300,000 project. She's certain there's one donor in Longview who could take care of that.

It would be a temporary fix, though. She said the city still needs a pool that could accommodate triathletes and swim lessons. She'd be able to include more age groups in her program, like she once did.

"My heart and our heart as a program is that everyone in East Texas would have an opportunity to learn how to swim, whether they're 85 or 3 or 17," she said. The organization she leads has helped send students to college on swimming scholarships. Lipp said the organization previously was able to provide lessons to children staying at the Hiway 80 Rescue Mission.

"I have never been in a place that's been so difficult to find a place to swim. It's just hard," she said.

Longview Swim Center

The city has punctuated the future of the Longview Swim Center with a question mark. The city owns and operates the pool on the Pine Tree High School campus as well as the smaller Ingram Pool on North 10th St.

The Longview Swim Center needs millions of dollars in repairs, and Parks Director John Albertson told the City Council in December that there are three options for the swim center: Close it permanently and then consider future aquatics facilities; spend more than $4 million repairing and remodeling a facility the city has limited access to because it's on the high school campus; or spend more than $13 million to abandon the pool and build a new, expanded facility with more features. The City Council did not make a decision but indicated more discussion would be needed.

The swim center is divided into two pools — a recreation pool and the deeper race pool.

"The race pool will not be able to open this summer. We hope to be able to have the rec pool open," Albertson said. "That's what we're working toward."

A pump must be replaced, though, and he said the city is trying to locate one and get it installed before summer gets here. The race pool will blocked off with fencing for the summer.

Lipp said her organization would like to buy the swim center. Heaters could be added so it could be a year round pool. "Bubbles" are available that can be placed over an outdoor pool to make it usable in winter months, but the issue of security at the high school and how it affects the pool's availability to people outside the school make that an unviable option, she said.

Albertson said a recent survey as part of an update to the city's comprehensive plan indicated community support for expanding the city's aquatics facilities and programs.

But he said society has changed, and now people want public aquatic facilities with more than just pools. They want added features such as lazy rivers. Across the country, pool facilities without those added features are seeing less use.

Equipment challenges that sometimes closed the city's pools this past summer affected the number of people who used them — 4,000 visits versus 8,600 in 2022; 6,400 in 2021; and 4,800 in 2020 after COVID-19 hit.

One of the "primary" goals is to be able to get the learn-to-swim program up and running again, which will help re-engage with a younger population, Albertson said.

This conversation, about how to adapt aquatics programs and facilities to modern users, is taking place all over the country, he said. The current struggle in Longview is "unfortunate," Albertson said, but the Longview community has a lot of positives.

"We have some great options to look forward to," when it comes to the city's aquatics facilities.

He doesn't have a specific timeline for when he'll come back to City Council with more information about the possible next steps for the Longview Swim Center.

"Our hope is to try to get back to City Council as soon as possible," Albertson said.