TAMPA, Fla. — The community pool in Sulphur Springs has been a part of people's memories for more than two decades. But it's been closed for months, frustrating people in the area.
Neighbors near Sulphur Springs can probably remember when they cooled off in the community pool off East Bird Street in Tampa.
Charlie Adams can recall when it first opened.
“We had to wait in a line, and the line went all the way to Nebraska Street, and they would do rotations of two-hour swimming in order to allow all the kids to have time to enjoy the pool,” said Adams, the president of the Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Association Action League.
Today, that pool looks a lot different.
The gates are closed and locked, protecting a hollow hole in the ground.
"There was an instant spark of real outrage,” said Adams.
That outrage? Because the Sulphur Springs pool is closed indefinitely.
People reached out to ABC Action News upset, frustrated, and worried that the area is losing a valuable resource for families and a way to keep kids occupied as summer break begins.
“We need things, activities to do. The kids need activities to be involved with,” said Adams. “An idle mind is the devil’s playground, so we need extracurricular activities in the community, and this is one of the vital resources that we have that can be used by the public. We shouldn’t have to go to other communities in order to enjoy ourselves.”
We took your questions to the City of Tampa and found out the pool has been closed since November for repairs. Later, the city learned it needed extensive work to fix it.
“We noticed major motion in the deck in the off-season. We took it down for maintenance. Once we got the pool drained, we noticed there was spring water flowing through the main drain,” said Louis Campanello, a Team Supervisor with the City’s Parks and Recreation Department. “We hired a company to come out, do a GPR study, which just means they just shoot this radar into the ground and kinda see what’s below the surface, and they noticed a large anomaly, so they’ve suggested that we do some core drilling and kinda find out what’s below the surface.”
Campanello said when they built the pool in 2000, he was one of the first lifeguards hired.
He said a timeline going forward is hard at this point, but some solutions are in the works, such as extending hours at both the Copeland Pool and Danny Del Rio Pool.
“They’re both seven days a week throughout the summer. We’re currently working with HART to kind of figure something out as far as transportation to get people there. We’ve notified all of our seniors, and we’re doing three stay-and-play nights.”
Still, people in the community point to a greater issue, hoping their neighborhood gets the spotlight they believe it deserves.
"I hope it’s a start, a beginning of something new, fresh, and it remains a focal point within the city that hey, Sulphur Springs really does need attention, we do need to allocate resources in the area, and we need to do it not five years from now, not 10 years from now, but we need to start now,” said Adams.
ABC Action News also reached out to the mayor about the situation and received the following statement.
"The closure of the Sulphur Springs public pool was necessary because it’s no longer safe for residents to swim in due to structural concerns. We are actively exploring safer alternatives and are committed to finding a long-term solution. In the meantime, we are working on providing transportation options to nearby facilities so that residents can continue to enjoy aquatic activities," said Mayor Jane Castor.
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