Tryon Avenue Pool Expanding Hours This Summer

City pool-goers will have the option of taking a dip at the Tryon Avenue Pool any day of the week this summer.

The pool, which was open to the general public only three days per week last summer, will return to a seven day operation for the coming pool season, which runs from June 26 to Sept. 2.

City council added an additional $28,000 to this year's budget to equalize hours of operation at the 3rd Ward pool, located at Tryon Avenue and Howell Road, and Mackay Park Pool, at the request of Councilman Eugene Skurnick.

"The reason I want the extra hours is that people come home from work and want to go to there with their kids," Skurnick said at an April budget meeting. "They don’t have their own swimming pools, they’re not going away weekends."

Manager Timothy Dacey said Tryon Avenue Pool's days and hours of operation were slashed last year after a usage study found the pool was underutilized compared to Mackay Park Pool.

Skurnick argued, however, that the low attendance resulted from a 2011 fee increase that more than tripled the cost of individual and family memberships, not a lack of interest in the pool.

"The problem started," he said, "when the fees were raised."

Dacey said the city will again track Tryon Pool usage this summer so that going forward council can make a determination whether to maintain the pool's seven day operation or scale hours back down if the data doesn't support keeping it open.

The Tryon Avenue Pool, which unlike Mackay Park is an olympic-size swimming pool, will have public swimming Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

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