West Texas A&M University Opens New Indoor Aquatic Park

DATE: 11/22/2002

What to do with a 50-meter indoor pool up to fourteen feet deep with a bather load you can count on two hands?

That's the problem faced by West Texas A&M University in Canyon just south of Amarillo (www.wtamu.edu).  The administrators for this university campus with over 7,000 students and faculty was forced to rethink the utilization of a 21,262-square foot natatorium and a 644,000 gallon pool that nobody except the most die-hard of lap swimmers and a few phys-ed classes used with any regularity.  With educational funds for capital expenditure so tight even in the massive Texas A & M system, it was a daunting task just to set priorities.  University officials chose the design firm of Lavin Associates Architects (www.lavinarchitects.com) from nearby Amarillo who had teamed with The C. T. Brannon Corporation as pool consulting engineers during the architect selection process.  Project manager for the pool consultant was Terry Brannon,P.E.  Lead architect appointed by principal Tom Lavin was Sara DeGrood with assistance provided by architect intern David Nowell. As the plans began to unfold, the design team and officials settled on taking half of the natatorium and therefore half the swimming pool and making it into an indoor aquatic park with fountains, slides and other entertainment value.  The other half of the natatorium would become two story weight rooms and other fitness training areas. It was clear early in the project that not all the work desired could be done within the budget and so the project was "scoped" to fit the available funds.  Future work will complete the project, especially the outdoor decks and window walls contemplated in the original plan. The staff instructions to the design team regarding the aquatic park went something like this.    We want: something for every age group from faculty to students to families with small children. big slides, channels, and fountains but keep lap swimming and basketball/volleyball in there, too. the pool to be small but have great fun value. Activity Center Director, Lane Supak, said as design was just starting, "The facility will not only have to serve the faculty and students but also the 'summer camps' for bands, cheerleading, and other organizations held here on campus.  The facilities will also be made available to the public through a membership basis."  To compound the challenge, the old pool is surrounded by an access tunnel which also happens to house part of the university steam heating system which could not be disturbed.  That meant that the new pool had to fit entirely within the old pool because the tunnel was, in effect, sacrosanct!  And then the ceiling was already low and the slide had to fit between the roof structure flanges. No problem. And just to make it interesting, the pool project together with building renovations, mechanical system changes, structural improvements and electrical had to come in under $2.0 million.  A construction manager-at-risk was hired, Wiley Hicks, Jr. Inc., also of Amarillo, to help with pricing and bidding out the work elements. The final conceptual drawings were released in September 2001 and final drawings for the project were completed in November that same year.  The project contains a short indoor current channel or lazy river, a 15-foot diameter vortex spin pool, a 110-foot Splashtacular open-flume body slide, an umbrella fountain, geyser floor-jets and a tumblebuckets fountain.  The width of the old pool was perfect for a 75-foot (25-yd) lap pool with three lanes.  In order to accomplish this the old pool walls were stripped of tile and re-used and a new floor was installed above the old deep pool shell.  Stainless steel perimeter gutter was added around part of the pool while tiled parapet walls surrounded the channel and vortex pool. Total area of the pool surface is now just over 4,100 s.f. and flow requirements for all the equipment was 4,755 gallons per minute. The deck, about 8,200 s.f. in all,  was covered with a poured-in-place 3/8" granular rubber surface all the way back to the walls.  To do that, Hicks had to remove all the deck tile installed thirty years ago Sub-contractor for the pool was Texas Waterworks (www.texaswaterworks.com) out of Carrollton, Texas who specializes in big pool construction and conversions.  Pool budget alone worked out to about $1.1 million.  Brannon's engineering drawings had TW  install eight pipes from 8-inch to as big as 16-inch diameter in the tunnel surrounding the pool and get the filters, valves, three pumps, and plenty of pipe into the basement area reserved for the pool equipment. No easy chore!  And all TW work had to be coordinated with overhead work on the building itself.  Bill Craddock, Director of Recreation Sports, for the university, when asked when the facility might be opened said, "We will probably wait until after final exams. This could prove too much a distraction." "According to editorials in The Prairie [campus newspaper], some of the students think this is just for fun and is designed for "kiddies", said Terry Brannon, the pool's designer.  "I challenge a few of those skeptics to try walking or swimming a few laps against the currents in what they call the 'lazy river'.  There's so much more than meets the eye."