Poolside perk up; Huntington gets much needed upgrades

Poplar Bluff’s R. W. Huntington Pool at Hillcrest Park currently is undergoing a bit of an upgrade, something Parks and Recreation Department Director Lanny Corcimiglia said hasn’t been done in quite some time. It comes ahead of what he hopes will be an opening later in the summer.

“It should end up being a nice facelift,” Corcimiglia said of the pool, which “serves the whole community, but especially the neighborhoods near downtown.”

The Huntington Pool facility was built in 1976, but there may have been an existing pool before that, Corcimiglia noted.

Poplar Bluff Parks and Recreation Department's Chris Barker pours paint into a bucket before finishing a paint job on a wall of the Huntington Pool building.DAR/Paul Davis

The work to update the facility started last week, Corcimiglia said, and should finish up by the end of this week.

“We’re repainting the inside and outside” of the building,” he said, “and we’re adding a couple of shaded benches on the inside of the fence for when you have pool parties.”

New, updated lounge chairs also will be set around the pool.

“We’re also looking to resurface the floors with paint that has traction to it,” Corcimiglia said of the upgrades.

The pool itself won’t see any new updates this year, Corcimiglia said, but “eventually we would like to update the liner.”

Another potential future update at the pool coming soon could be murals painted by local artists on the exterior walls of the shower and locker building.

“It would be a collaboration between our staff and Steve Whitworth at the art museum to possibly put murals on exterior walls of the pool facility,” Corcimiglia explained.

To decide on which artwork would be featured, he said, the Parks and Recreation Department “may do a contest for art work. Hopefully, we’ll get some interest in it.”

That likely will happen later this summer.

With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, Corcimiglia said, he isn’t sure when the pool will open for business, but he’s hoping it can be “sometime this summer.”

Currently, the department is working closely with the Butler County Health Department and the Butler County Emergency Management Agency to come to a decision.

Once the pool does open, Corcimiglia noted, all normal programs there, including pool parties, swim lessons, water aerobics, lifeguard training, family swim night and others will continue to be offered.