It will be Holding Park Aquatic Center

When Wake Forest’s pool in Holding Park opens on May 15 it will be called the Holding Park Aquatic Center, the town board decided Tuesday night.

The name change occasioned the only possible controversy in what was a very short meeting. Commissioner Bridget Wall-Lennon said she wanted a better understanding of what makes an aquatic center as opposed to a pool, saying the aquatic centers she is familiar with all have a cover or a roof and classrooms.

Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department Director Ruben Wall said the designers came back to the town with a plan that has three different elements – a lap pool, a plunge pool with slides and a children’s pool. “From the staff perspective it’s not just a pool any more. We do offer classes.”

Sandy Thomason, the chairman of the recreation advisory board, said, “The whole concept is going to be changed. We’re looking at different hours and more classes.” There will also be programs at night, she said. Later she said they wanted the name change because there was a “concern that people won’t know there are three pools.”

“The intent is to capture the change,” Wall said.

“I don’t care what they call it as long as it is open this year,” Commissioner Brian Pate. He also made the motion for the name change and it was seconded by Wall-Lennon.

The pool has been closed for two summers. After serious deficiencies in the lining were discovered as the pool was being prepared for the 2016 season, it was closed while the board and the parks and rec department decided on the best course. In November the town board voted to build the new pool (now aquatic center) on the same site behind the Community House on West Owen Avenue, but the scheduling hit a snag in May of 2017. That was when Wall came to the board to say the pump house is deteriorating and will not hold the new equipment needed for the three-pool plan. That added delay and $200,000 to $250,000 to the estimated $2.5 million already approved. Construction of the new center got underway in the fall of 2017.

Commissioner Greg Harrington, who said he is “just an old guy” who likes the old name, was the only commissioner to vote against the name change.

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The board appointed Joseph Fisher to the board of adjustment. In earlier voting he had been tied with Ariel Mordetsky. There is still an empty seat for an alternate board member from the town’s extra-territorial jurisdiction.

Thomas Smith was appointed to the planning board to replace Chad Sary, formerly the town’s assistant planning director and most recently working for a development company before he accepted a position with the town of Knightdale.

The commissioners also approve a waiver of the town ordinance banning the consumption of alcohol on town streets for the second Oktoberfest sponsored by Dino Radosta, owner of White Street Brewing Company. Harrington voted no after stating his objections.

Harrington was named the mayor pro tem on a motion by Commissioner Anne Reeve.

The board voted unanimously to deny the request by the owners of the Wake Forest Crossing shopping center to construct a building between two stores, Cato and Ross, that Community Development Director Chip Russell had opposed during the public hearing.

The vote was also unanimous to approve the Hargrove’s Corner subdivision of six single-family homes on Caddell Street. The land for the six lots is owned by the town, which plans to sell the lots to Habitat for Humanity of Wake County to build the homes and assure they are always affordable.