BREC is asking the state of Louisiana for $22.4 million to build a new recreation and aquatic center at Brooks Park, a project that would give the agency its first indoor swimming pool and replace the outdated pool currently serving the Old South Baton Rouge neighborhood. The request is part of a larger $28 million investment planned for the historic park.
According to WBRZ, BREC’s financing plan pairs that state request with $5.6 million from the agency’s own capital improvement funds, bringing the total proposed investment to $28 million. The funding is being sought through Louisiana’s 2027-2028 capital outlay process, according to Business Report, and that outlet also notes the broader proposal includes drainage, utility, parking and accessibility improvements.
The new pool would be BREC’s first indoor aquatic facility, a shift that would let Brooks Park host aquatic programs year-round instead of just during the summer swim season. The station’s report says the indoor pool is designed to support youth camps, competitive training and lifeguard certification, extending the kind of programming Brooks Park has offered for generations into the colder months.
A Pool Born Out of Segregation
Brooks Park didn’t start as a BREC property. It began as a community-built response to segregation, when Black residents of Baton Rouge had no public pool of their own to swim in. The Rev. W.K. Brooks served as president of the United Negro Recreation Association, which raised the money to build a pool where Black children and families could swim, as reported by The Advocate.
That pool and the surrounding property opened in 1949, per the same WBRZ account. The United Negro Recreation Association later donated the Brooks Pool and surrounding land to Baton Rouge’s recreation committee — the forerunner of today’s BREC — in 1953, according to Envision Baton Rouge.
BREC Superintendent and CEO Brooks Williams has pointed to that history as part of why the agency owes Brooks Park this investment now. “We need to own that,” Williams said, referring to BREC’s history of discrimination, the station’s report notes. Williams also said the investment is expected to improve life in the surrounding neighborhood.
What the New Center Would Add
Beyond the pool itself, the proposed recreation and aquatic center would include new multipurpose rooms. Those spaces are intended to provide room for community programs, meetings, and media and technology education, rounding out a facility meant to serve the neighborhood well beyond swim season.
The Brooks Park proposal lands against the backdrop of a broader shift in how BREC designs its recreation centers. The agency’s IYP3 planning document recommended moving toward a tiered model of recreation centers to improve quality and support sustainable staffing and maintenance, according to BREC’s own planning materials. Under that model, a Tier 1 center — the kind slated for Zachary Community Park, pending approval of BREC’s Recreation Center Transition Plan — would include a gym, an indoor mezzanine walking loop and community meeting space, per BREC’s portfolio.
Brooks Park’s Place in a Larger Vision
Brooks Park is also tied into a separate, larger planning effort for the surrounding area. A proposed City-Brooks Park master plan would expand pathways in the area from 4 miles to nearly 7 miles and boost parking from 287 spaces to 600, according to a separate WBRZ report on compromises unveiled in the master plan. Those enhancements are expected to be built in six phases with a price tag between $75 million and $125 million, the outlet reported.
A related Sasaki master plan for City-Brooks Park calls for a recreation center, pool improvements and better connectivity between the two park areas, according to 225 Baton Rouge. Together, the plans suggest Brooks Park’s indoor pool request is one piece of a much larger conversation about how the historic park and its surroundings will serve Old South Baton Rouge in the years ahead. For now, BREC’s $22.4 million request moves forward through the state’s capital outlay process, with the agency framing the project as both a practical upgrade and a reckoning with the park’s segregation-era origins.
