New pool entrance planned for summer

Next summer, Valley Stream residents will be using a new entrance at the pool complex, if all goes according to plan. Village officials have selected a design for the entrance by Haks Construction Management.

Mayor Ed Fare said he got about a half-dozen submissions from various firms for a new entrance to the Hendrickson Park pool complex. However, he said several of the designs were eliminated because it kept the entrance in the same place. Fare is looking to move the entrance to the center of the complex, replacing an unused area that was formerly the men’s outdoor changing room.

The new entrance would include two handicapped accessible bathrooms. Each bathroom would have four showers and four toilets, according to Building Department Superintendent Tom McAleer. The purpose of the project is to bring the pool facility into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It currently does not have ADA-compliant bathrooms and the main entrance is not handicapped accessible either. The wheelchair entrance is actually on the other side of the complex, by the children’s interactive area.

The bathrooms would be pre-fabricated buildings and installed at each side of the former men’s changing area. The center would be the new entrance to the pool with a desk in the middle. Two concrete walls will be taken down and a half-circle gate installed to block the entrance when the pool is closed.

A tent-like structure will be installed over the new entrance. There will be a large steel beam in the center, branching off into four beams that support the structure. The actual covering will be a coated, woven fiberglass composition. McAleer said it will be “paper thin” but seven layers thick and designed to withstand all weather conditions. It will come with a 25-year guarantee. “It’s been used in stadiums,” he said of the tensile material, made by Birdair of Buffalo.

Michael Fox, deputy village treasurer, said the new entrance is expected to cost between $500,000 and $600,000. Money would be borrowed, and funded through the village’s annual capital plan.