Community pool In the fall of 2015, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville reached out to Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton about the city’s interest in taking over Cougar Lake Pool.
The outdoor pool, located at 88 Recreation Drive at SIU Edwardsville, had seen a decrease in student use. Budget cuts also made it illogical for the university to continue operating the pool.
“We’ve always had a desire for a public pool,” Katie Grable, assistant director of parks and recreation for the city of Edwardsville, said. “This is …show more content…
“It will be funded one way or another, but anytime we have support from the community it’s going to help us achieve other projects,” Grable said.
The park, which will be named after longtime resident and alderman Leon Corlew, will feature a wet play area – called a splash pad – and a dry playground.
“Our splash pad is the main feature of that park, even though it will only be open during the warm months,” Grable said. “It’s something that’s unique to our community.”
The splash pad will feature different zones, ranging from gentle, bubbling water to harder spraying water. It will include a dump bucket that pours water on children, active sprayers kids can control and gentle bubbles for younger children and children with disabilities.
“It works its way up from your gentle bubblers to big spraying elements and active spraying elements,” Grable said.
The dry playground will be a tall structure, including enclosed slides.
“It’s a multi-tiered structure,” Grable said. “It’s very colorful. It has a lot of active elements. It has a lot of unique ways to get from Point A to point