After seeing the shallow/deep discussion in the college season thread, I think there may be enough on the topic to warrants its own thread. It sounds like many college varsity programs have to play in this kind of pool. I am also seeing a theme of pools being 40-60 years old and how expensive it is to rent time.
This begs the question about the economics of building a new pool as a profitable business model. I know securing the land and construction makes the cost of entry high. But if these really have a 40-60 year life span, constantly booked at high rates, a long depreciation horizon, etc., it seems like someone with capital could see an opportunity to find the communities with such demand and go for it. I am 100% sure it is very complex and may not be a good investment, but it seems to be an industry with way more demand than supply around the country.
I just officiated a club tournament at Boston University. It’s a nice pool–25 meters by 25 yards, plus a diving well that is 25 yards by ~20 yards separated with a movable bunkhead, all deep. It’s fairly new, about 20 years old. In addition to the pool the building has weight rooms, a climbing wall, squash and racquetball courts, etc. The coach told me the original plan had been to have a 50 meter by 25 yard pool, but they cut down the pool size to add an all-shallow warm water pool and hot tub instead. The reason was economic. With swim lessons and rentals for parties in the shallow pool, they thought they could help support maintenance costs for the competition pool. The shallow pool was hopping all day Saturday and Sunday.
Specatcular new pool at Colby College, Maine. A NESCAC school, and recipient of the largest single donation ever made to a private US college, in part for the athletic facility this pool is part of. This article is almost 10 years old, from when the building was being commissioned, but it was said to be a $200 million project. I think it is now the nicest pool in New England–certainly the nicest I have been in. 50 meters, 2 movable bulkheads, all deep for polo, separate diving well during swim meets. Colby College to Build Maine’s First Olympic Size Swimming Pool
Needless to say, there is a large difference in construction cost of in vs. outdoor pool. For an indoor pool of something around 35x25 + changing rooms + ventilation & A/C + seating area => $30Mm - $50Mm project.
San Dieguito High School District in Coastal San Diego is about to commission a 37m x 25 y (15 lanes, 12 of them deep water) outdoor pool with included diving well, changing rooms, offices, even a snack bar, for ~$22mm. The district, which has 12K students and 12 HS aquatics teams over 4 high schools, has never had a pool before.
The SDUHSDistrict is supposed to build a second pool in the north part of the district boundaries, but that will wait for additional funding.
But the point is that a 37m outdoor pool and buildings is ~1/2 - 2/3 the cost of an indoor facility.
(Oh, and by adding a 37m pool, SDUHSD is increasing the available deep water in the county by between 5 and 10%, depending on how you count the number of pools available)
A Myrtha in a spruced up warehouse is well under half the cost of an in ground and done in a quarter of the time. The IOC and FINA have this figured out but it hasn’t caught on in the US aside from a few scattered sites.
Very interesting. I am also betting all the bells and whistles are not needed to attract swim clubs, water polo clubs, rec users, etc to fill most if not all the rentable time. Have enough deck space for enough bleachers and it seems you can make a long term business model out of it. A lot of district pools etc have inflated costs of construction for various reasons.
Volleyball and soccer also figured this out long ago. Get away from school districts, and you can both build and run facilities at a healthy profit margin.
I’m not sure that would be the case, at least not in our region. The pools charge a significant fee per hour/lane to the clubs to train and play at the facilities so it seems it would remain the same, just privatized and run more efficiently and at a profit.
I remember reading something about the increase in Private Equity Firms in youth sports and the TL;DR version of it was how lucrative it can be for these firms to buy land and create the facilities with the an unintended consequence being what @Mepolo alludes to: making youth sports a wealthy endevour.
I know there will be detractors and people who say this can’t happen, but, I mean, look around. What hasn’t been privatized and driven truly by profit? Education, government, healthcare, etc. All these things that we thought couldn’t be infiltrated eventually are now being run like business and not intended the way they were supposed to be run?
Not trying to be political, but trying to point out that if a profit can be made in a field, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes privatized and the main end goal is $$$$$$$…hopefully that wouldn’t be the case with youth sports, but I ain’t holding my breath.
I could absolutely see that happening. What has happened recently is having districts build and charging very inflated pool rental rates, so similar to private equity actually. The only difference is the high rate is paying for poor leadership and inefficiency instead of PE profit. Ideally someone just invests in it, makes some money, and charges a fair rate.
Interesting. In my part of the world, virtually all the aquatics facilities are owned by public and private colleges and universities; non-profits like YM/WCA’s and Boys and Girls Clubs, or towns (usually with their schools). Most of the ice rinks are also associated with schools or municipally owned and run. A few are run by non-profits with lots of sponsorship from local businesses. The only privately-owned facilities I can think of are indoor tennis courts. I think the economics of indoor pool construction, maintenance and operation would make it a tough business, and it’s hard for me to imagine they could make money charging what local pools do–about $100/hour, which includes paying the lifeguards. The real problem is that pool time to rent is very scarce–usually an hour or two per day on weekends. I suspect swim teams and other regular users may have different fees.
That’s a good rate you are getting compared to what we get. It is double that in our zone and the demand is far higher than availability so constantly “sold out”.
There is an interesting website I use when traveling around the world. It shows the locations of pools of various lengths public/private, open to the public etc. Then a link to the website of the pool with hours, prices etc.