Renovations are underway at the swimming pool in the Looney Complex at Missouri Western State University. Crews are currently giving the pool deck and shell a new surface.

After that they’ll work out a new, direct entrance to the pool area from outside, and the locker rooms will get an upgrade.

Missouri Western’s Assistant Director of PR and Marketing Kent Heier tells us the pool will not be ready this summer, but should reopen before the city pools close.

“What’ll be nice is that we’ll be reopening in August,” Mr Heier said in an interview, “so just shortly before the municipal pools close for the season we will be reopening, and so people will have that recreational opportunity continuing through the off season.”

The pool will be open year-round, subject to reserved times for private events, school district practice and programming from the City of St Joseph.

The project came together thanks to partial funding from Buchanan County, which paid out $20,000 to jump start the repairs. The St Joseph School District has paid $22,000 to secure the pool for physical education and swim-team practices. The City of St Joseph will supplement the operational expenses of the pool. An accounting is expected in about a year to see just how much the city will contribute based on costs and revenues. Officials say the city’s share is capped at about $61,000.

The county money ensures that every resident of the county will have access to what is now a public swimming pool. But Mr. Heier says there will be fees.

“There will be fees for the general public using the pool,” he says. “Those fees are currently being discussed and will be set before the pool reopens in August.”

Heier says the fees will be similar to those being paid by patrons of the city’s neighborhood pools.