ESCANABA — After decades of cool summer fun, the Webster Wading Pool will soon be a thing of the past. The city is working to bring a new splash pad to the site, which will open next year.

“It’s going to be a great project. … Next year — it’s not going to be this year because, like I said, we tried but it’s just not realistic,” said Escanaba Parks and Recreation Director Kim Peterson.

The target age for the splash pad will be children between the ages of three and six years old, but Peterson recognizes families will also bring children who are older. Unlike the wading pool, which provided shallow water for children to play in, the splash pad will not have standing water. Instead, it will feature sprayers and other water features that offer a fun way to cool off for young children without the risks inherent to traditional pools.

The main reason for the change from the wading pool to the splash pad, however, was the condition of the pool itself. After more than 40 years in operation, the wading pool was in serious disrepair.

“The last few years that we had it in operation it was a maintenance nightmare. A lot of broken pipes pieced together and we actually had to cut out 18 feet of concrete to get to the pipes beneath the pool. It wasn’t feasible anymore,” said Peterson.

The pandemic shuttered the wading pool, but the recreation department continued looking at ways to redevelop the site into a modern park.

“A lot of people don’t understand that that site is actually considered a park for the city because the city accepted money back in 1983 for the shelter house that’s on the property. So with the pool being gone, we have to put some sort of a park there, so that’s why we’re going to put the splash park on that site,” said Peterson.

In 2021, the city applied for a grant through the Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund, which, consistent with the DNR’s grant schedule, was awarded in 2022 with the necessary agreements set to be in place this year.

Because the city no longer has an engineer on staff, the city council recently approved contracting with local firm C2AE, who will help with the bidding process. With C2AE’s assistance, the project is expected to go out for bids in August or September of this year.

“And then what they’re telling me in the construction world is that it’s five to nine months just to get parts for it. So being realistic, it’s not going to happen till 2024,” said Peterson.

Part of the terms of the $150,000 DNR Trust Fund grant is that the project must be completed by July 31, 2024, though the splash pad will likely look different than what was envisioned when the project began.

“When we started this project, it was before COVID and everything went up in price drastically. So our big, grandiose splash park might be scaled back, but we’ll still be able to add on in the future if we get funding,” said Peterson, who noted that water sprayers at the start of the project cost between $800 and $1,000 but now cost between $2,500 and $5,300.

In total, the splash pad is anticipated to cost around $225,000.

In addition to the DNR Trust Fund money, the project is being funded by $50,000 in matching funds from the city, a $5,000 grant from the Kobasic Foundation, and additional funding from the Community Foundation For Delta County and the Delta-Schoolcraft County Great Start Family Coalition.

Not all of the support is financial. The city will be tearing out the pool and plumbing to help reduce costs for the project, and the Delta-Schoolcraft County Great Start Family Coalition has an addition of their own planned for the site.

“They’re going to do a small playground with a book library and a reading bench. So they’re going to partner with us at the same site to put all of those amenities there as well,” said Peterson.