Saline Council Approves Repairs for Aquatic Center

Saline City Council approved repairs for the aquatic center’s HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system at their February 2 meeting.

After a series of breaks and repairs to the system occurring since fall of 2023, the HVAC system at the recreation center suffered a “critical failure” after breaking on February 9 of this year according to the Saline City Council meeting’s agenda. The aquatic center has been closed since, and all pool-related classes and events have been canceled in the meantime.

“I’ve heard from countless numbers of individuals who use our tools for therapy and for, you know, they’re prescribed by their physicians to be coming into the center to be swimming or using our hot tub or using our warm leisure pool,” Parks and Recreation Director Sunshine Lambert said. “So that’s, you know, one thing, we’re losing that programming.”

Repairing the HVAC system has been deemed urgent because of the importance of the recreation center to the community and the potential for damage if repairs are put off.

“I went and viewed and the condensation to the rec center was tremendous, and there was fear that the condensation would then damage, you know, the roof,” Acting City Manager Elle Cole said.

Councilmember Lasch echoed Cole’s sentiment.

“As a frequent user of the rec center, I was there the day that that thing broke down, and you could see the humidity on the ceiling,” he said. “So it definitely is something we need to remedy as fast as we can.”

Approval to fund the repairs was put to the council and the motion was passed unanimously.