The City of Winchester’s Municipal Pool is almost complete. Winchester Mayor Rex McIntire says that work is currently being completed on the pool’s liner, but the city should begin filling the newly renovated pool by the end of the week: “We’ve been assured by the contractors, Natare, who is doing the liner – they have been here off and on for the last two weeks and they had a crew out there Monday morning when I stopped by to check on it; they are working on it today – and they assured us they would be done by the end of this week, so our city crew can start doing their thing. Doyle Plumbing & Heating is out there finishing up some of their work [on the pump house], and if we can get Trotter Construction in to finish their work, then they all assured us it would be done by the end of this week.”
McIntire says that chair of the Pool Board Jill Cox and Winchester City Council liaison Bill Jacquot have said the pool will have a grand re-opening on the weekend of May 29th with some festivities and giveaways: “They are planning on having the Grand Re-Opening at 10AM on May 29th. They are going to have giveaways, like ice cream and stuff. They are going to have a raffle as a fundraiser, too. They are planning on having everything in order to get things started up [for the season] on the 29th.”
McIntire says he expects a good influx of families and people from out of town coming to the pool to see the newly renovated facilities. The City received a 50/50 matching grant in September 2019 from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Open Space Land Acquisition and Development (OSLAD) program for $335,000. The entire project total is expected to have cost around $670,000 once it is complete.