M Focus on: Public Works
Reston receives distinctions for aquatic center makeover By DANI MESSICK | The Municipal
When it became clear their 40-year-old community center pool was obsolete, management and community residents agreed to spend an estimated $5.5 million to remodel the entire aquatics center. Built in 1979, Reston, Va.’s, Terry L. Smith Aquatics Center initially consisted of a singular 25-meter pool with seven lap lanes and a deep end with a diving board. The indoor swimming area was named after Terry L. Smith, who was a long-time board member for the Reston Community Center and also a swimming instructor for nearly 20 years. “Terry taught hundreds of kids to swim in that pool, and when he lost his battle with cancer in the early 2000s, before he died, we decided to name the aquatics center for Terry in recognition for all the service he had given, not just on the board but in his capacity as a swimming teacher to the community,” said Leila Gordon, executive director of Reston Community Center. In 2017, management began considering renovations to the project, and they realized they’d need to completely replace the pool shell underneath. As a small tax district, Reston Community Center receives 4.7 cents per $100 from any taxpayer living inside the tax district. The tax district was created in the 1970s in order to build and operate a community center that Gordon said was far beyond what was available to community members at that time — a 50,000-square-foot building with an aquatic center, professional theatre, meeting rooms, culinary classroom, catering kitchen, woodworking shop, ballroom and other amenities.
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The new Reston Community Center Terry L. Smith Aquatic Center includes two pools, one with temperatures that athletes prefer and a warmer one for families and therapeutic activities. (Photo provided)
With sufficient capital reserves for the project, the community center began to further explore the idea and discovered the community would fare best with not one but two pools in the newly renovated aquatic center — one with six lanes and cooler temperatures for athletes and the other with warmer temperatures for therapeutics and swimming lessons. With designers, contractors and all other necessary assistance in place, the project began. “If we had known then what we know now, we would have been considerably more panicked, I think,” Gordon said.
The first struggle began right at the front doors. The two sets of double doors were the only access to the area. “They were essentially going to dig out a 40-year-old swimming pool and deck and surrounding infrastructure and do all that going in and out of these two sets of double doors.” Fairfax County Department of Public Works and Environmental Services’ Martha Sansaver, project manager, explained that the size of equipment also had to be taken into consideration due to the height of the double doors. The contractors developed a system. “They had a plan where they came in one door and went out the other, and that was
