LANSING — When it’s open, thousands of people each week stand on the century-old oval-shaped oddity called Moores Park Pool in downtown Lansing, sometimes never knowing about the history touching their toes.
It is Lansing’s most notable pool, and one of the nation’s oldest surviving public pools. It’s expected to reopen in 2025 after being mothballed since 2019, when it became too leaky and too costly to fix up. The pandemic and the repair price tag have kept the pool closed ever since.
The pool won’t be open this year, and maybe not for the start of the season in 2025 either but it should be open for swimming next year, said Brett Kaschinske, the city’s parks director.
Held together essentially with “Duct tape and Band-Aids,” by 2019, the 100-year-old pool’s fate was looking grim when it was shuttered, said Dale Schrader, chair of Friends of Moores Park Pool, a group that pushed to save it.
His group has spent several years raising money and advocating for the pool’s return to glory, including working with Preservation Lansing and lobbying state leaders to help fund the repairs.