Repairing Natchez’ indoor pool could be financially out of reach

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Fixing the city’s century-old Carpenter swimming pool could be “astronomically expensive” and beyond repair.

Located inside the Natchez Senior Citizens Center on Washington and Martin Luther King streets, the basement pool has been closed this summer because equipment inside emits toxic carbon monoxide. Other problems to fix include leaks that could threaten the stability of the 112-year-old building it occupies.

An engineer’s assessment of the needed repairs has the work costing a budget-busting amount.

“This sounds like this could turn into an astronomically expensive proposition,” Natchez Alderman Curtis Moroney said Tuesday after hearing the engineer’s report of what’s needed to repair the swimming pool’s structural defects.

“We just need to put our thinking caps on and be prepared that we might not get this pool back,” Moroney said.

Meeting Tuesday with the Board of Aldermen, Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said efforts will be made to find money to get the indoor pool back in operations.

“We’re going to have to determine if there are grant funds available – other sources of funding available. That’s going to take some time,” Gibson said.

The mayor declined to publicly cite the potential cost for refurbishing the pool. Letting contractors know the estimated amount could prompt those bidding for the job to inflate how much they’d charge for the project, he said.   

Considered Mississippi’s oldest indoor swimming pool that’s still been in use, the natatorium is in the former Carpenter school building constructed in 1913.

Crippled by water leaks and circulation problems, the pool’s repairs would involve ground excavation work and replacing its tiles with a plastered floor and walls, Gibson said. The pool’s mechanical equipment would have to be placed outside in a newly built structure because of the toxic fumes it emits.