A brand-new, nearly $17 million community pool built alongside East Longmeadow High School still hasn't opened to a single swimmer, and with meets set to begin the week of November 1, the town's 120 youth swimmers are running out of time to get in the water. The pool missed its projected opening date of September 28 because of a water heater component that still hadn't arrived as of mid-October, leaving the East Longmeadow Marlins swim team scrambling for somewhere, anywhere, to practice.
The holdup traces back to equipment shipped from out of state, East Longmeadow Town Manager Thomas D. Christensen said, according to MassLive. Until the heater is working, the town's health department and its insurance agency will not allow the pool to open, the outlet reports — a restriction consistent with Massachusetts State Sanitary Code 105 CMR 435.000, which requires public and semi-public pools to secure an annual operating permit from the local Board of Health and meet strict water quality, temperature, and mechanical safety standards, per the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
For Cora Gauvin, who coaches both the Marlins club team and the high school swimming and diving team and who also served on the pool's building committee, the delay has been especially frustrating because she was repeatedly told the pool would open within days, the station's report notes, which kept her from lining up other practice hosts sooner. The Marlins previously practiced at Springfield pools when their old facility was unavailable, but that option is largely off the table now: Springfield Public Schools is still recovering from a September cyberattack that shut the district down for four days and scrambled facility scheduling, according to New England Public Media.
A Team Running Out of Runway
The Marlins' former pool, a four-lane addition to the old high school building that opened in 1964 and served swim teams and community programs for nearly 60 years, was demolished to make way for the new complex, per background from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The team usually needs several weeks of evaluation sessions, practices, and a practice meet before its first competition, according to Marlins coach Cora Gauvin, which means every day without pool access tightens an already thin runway before meets begin the week of November 1. Massachusetts state law separately requires districts to hold a 180-day academic calendar, and Springfield revised winter break dates after its own disruption in an effort to preserve instructional days at year-end — a reminder of how tightly regional school schedules are wound together this fall, per Springfield Public Schools.
The new pool itself is physically connected to East Longmeadow High School on Maple Street and was built alongside the new school building, which opened to students for the 2026–2027 academic year while work and testing continued on surrounding athletic amenities, the station's report states. Because the Massachusetts School Building Authority explicitly excludes swimming pools from state reimbursement, East Longmeadow voters had to approve the high school and the natatorium as two separate debt exclusion questions on November 7, 2023 — $177.5 million for the school building and $16.79 million for the six-lane pool, funded entirely through local borrowing. State officials raised the funding cap for school construction from $393 to $550 per square foot in October 2023, pushing state grant funding for the high school project to $82 million, according to the Town of East Longmeadow.
Public Access Questions Linger Alongside the Delay
Even before the heater arrives, residents are pressing town officials to spell out who will actually run the pool and who gets to use it. Darlene Reese, an East Longmeadow resident and water safety education consultant with nearly three decades of aquatic facility management experience, told the town council on October 13 that officials need to clarify responsibility for water safety, lifeguard training, and legal liability, and to make sure voters can actually access the pool they funded, per the station's report. Reese, who works for Florida-based Ellis & Associates — a firm that has advised health clubs and amusement parks on pool safety policies — said she's concerned the school may simply reserve the pool for students during the day and that school officials may not have the proper training to operate it.```
Jonathan J. Torcia said public use was part of the reason voters approved the pool in the first place, and Christensen said he has been working on a memorandum of understanding so the town recreation department and the school can share use and oversight of the facility, hoping to have it ready for school committee approval on Monday. The recreation department already employs a certified aquatics director, and the town has hired Max Langford to fill that newly created role — training on the pool's mechanical systems while discussing public swimming hours and recreational class schedules with school officials. Langford will also oversee the town's existing outdoor pool at Pine Knoll Recreation Area on Allen Street, where the recreation department runs summer day camps and outdoor swimming.
What Public Access Could Look Like
Once the memorandum is finalized, weekday public uses of the new pool could include adult lap swimming, water aerobics classes, and lifeguard training, according to the station's report. Reese noted that public use could also generate membership and rental fee revenue along with grant funding for classes, and said seniors specifically anticipated a lap-swimming program when they voted for the facility. The new 191,796-square-foot high school complex, including the natatorium, was designed with all-electric heating and power systems backed by a 450-kilowatt rooftop solar array, according to Fontaine Bros., Inc., the construction manager the East Longmeadow School Building Committee unanimously selected in January 2024 to oversee both the school and the pool project.
For now, the Marlins and their 120 young swimmers are left waiting on a single missing part before the pool built for them can finally open. With meets looming and alternative venues scarce, the next few weeks will determine whether the season starts anywhere close to on time.
