Fort Morgan officially broke ground Thursday on a new aquatics facility rising next to the Fort Morgan Fieldhouse, marking the start of construction on a project city leaders say has been years in the making. The same contractor that built the Fieldhouse, GH Phipps Construction, will oversee the new build, and crews were expected to begin work the following Monday.
City Manager Brent Nation told the crowd gathered at the ceremony that the project traces back to when Fort Morgan began acquiring land in the Centrepointe area more than a decade ago, according to The Fort Morgan Times. Nation said he started working for the city 14 years earlier, when the site that now houses the Fieldhouse and is about to host the aquatics center was nothing but a cornfield. Since then, the Fieldhouse has been built at the site, with the aquatics center to follow.
A Vision That Took Years to Fund
According to the Times, Fort Morgan began discussing a new aquatics facility several years ago during a city council visioning session, and the city later worked with architects and engineers to study options and develop preliminary plans. Officials eventually determined that outside funding was necessary to move the project forward, which led the city to form an ad hoc committee to gather public input and identify the amenities residents wanted most, the newspaper reported. The committee's work focused on gathering public input and identifying desired amenities.
City documents show the groundwork for that funding ask was laid in August 2025, when the City of Fort Morgan announced it would place a ballot question before voters asking them to raise the sales tax by 1% to pay for construction and maintenance of an indoor aquatics facility. The city said at the time that if the measure passed, it would look to issue up to $25 million in bonds to fund the project. Voters answered the following November: the city's “Penny for a Pool” ballot question passed by a vote of 1,194 to 1,018 in the November 4 coordinated election, the Times reported.
GH Phipps Returns for Another Fort Morgan Build
The City Council approved a $27,260,505 construction contract with GH Phipps in March, selecting the firm for its extensive experience with aquatics facilities across Colorado and its track record with the city, including the Fieldhouse project, which came in under budget, the Times reported at the time. The council vote was unanimous. The project marks another GH Phipps build in Fort Morgan.
Fort Morgan Assistant City Manager Matt Underwood also spoke at the groundbreaking.
Replacing a Pool Built in 1947
Fort Morgan's outdoor swimming pool dates to 1947, and the new aquatics facility will replace it.
Community feedback informed design iterations for the facility. Survey results were part of the design process, as reflected in the City of Fort Morgan's conceptual design narrative.
That same city narrative describes the indoor facility as a replacement for the aging Riverside Park outdoor pool, connecting to the Fieldhouse's east side, and lists a recreational family pool, a multifunction lap pool, a warm-water pool, a spa pool and slides among the planned amenities, along with locker rooms and meeting spaces. Reported figures on the project's size differ: a report from medialogicradio.com on the groundbreaking described a 30,000-square-foot facility, while the city's design narrative lists the proposed addition at 26,900 square feet. Timelines for completion also vary between sources: the Times reported in March that the schedule anticipated a March 2028 opening, while medialogicradio.com's coverage of the groundbreaking said the facility was expected to open to the public in the summer of 2028.
Designed for Community Use
Nation thanked current and former city council members, committee members and community partners for helping advance the project, specifically recognizing Cargill, Leprino Foods, Morgan Community College, CommonSpirit, Morgan County RE-3 School District and Evans Child Care Center, according to the Times. The facility is designed to serve a range of community users.
For now, the cornfield-turned-Centrepointe corridor that Nation described watching transform over 14 years is about to add one more chapter, with heavy equipment set to roll in as construction gets underway next to the Fieldhouse.
