After Months of Watching It Rise, Quincy’s New Aquatic Center Finally Feels Real
The old pool raised generations of Quincy kids. The new aquatic center is preparing to welcome the next.
For months, people throughout the 98848 have watched the new Quincy Aquatic Center rise from a construction site into a finished facility. We’ve driven by it on our way to work, followed drone videos and progress photos on social media, and tried to imagine what it would look like when it finally opened. Earlier today, I got an early walkthrough of the facility with Quincy Recreation Director Russ Harrington, and I brought my 14-year-old daughter with me. What I discovered was that seeing it in person and seeing it through the eyes of both a parent and a teenager completely changed my perspective on what this new facility will mean to our community.
TL;DR
The new Quincy Aquatic Center feels significantly larger in person than it appears in photos.
The facility includes three large water slides, a lazy river, climbing wall, rope swing, diving board, and expanded zero-depth play area.
Family amenities and accessibility features have been improved from the old aquatic center.
Shade may be one of the biggest challenges during the first season.
The facility appears poised to become one of the primary gathering places for families in the community.
A teenager’s reaction during the tour suggested local kids and teens are already excited to spend time there.
Bigger Than We Realized
I don’t live far from the aquatic center. Like many Quincy residents, I’ve watched this project take shape for months. I’ve walked near it, driven by it countless times, and photographed its progress as the pools and structures slowly came together.
But pulling into the parking lot for the first time felt different. Instead of looking at a construction project, I was pulling in as if my daughter and I were there to spend the day. Suddenly, I noticed things I had never paid attention to before. I noticed the exterior concession window and how the parking wraps around the building. I noticed the entrance and the layout from a visitor’s perspective.
For the first time, it felt like a destination instead of a project. Walking through the front gates only reinforced that feeling. The giant slide tower immediately commands your attention, but it is the sheer size of everything that surprises you. The drone photos and social media updates have been helpful, but they do not accurately communicate scale. The water slides are taller than they appear. The play structure in the zero-depth area is much larger than it looks in photographs.
Standing on the pool deck, you quickly realize this is a much bigger facility than many of us imagined.
Designed for Families and Activity
One of the biggest differences from the old aquatic center is how open the new facility feels.
The old pool was naturally divided by buildings and structures that broke up the space. Here, most of those support areas have been moved to the side, creating one large recreation area with numerous activities happening at once.
As a parent, that immediately caught my attention. There is simply more room for children to move around and more places for them to play. The zero-depth area, the lazy river, the slides, and the deep-water attractions all create a larger, more active environment than the old pool.
I also understood immediately why the city has hired more lifeguards this year. Parents are going to need to remain attentive because younger children can move between activities much more freely than they could at the previous facility. That’s not a criticism of the design. In many ways, it’s a compliment. The aquatic center has been designed to encourage exploration and activity.
Russ also pointed out several practical improvements that should make life easier for families. The facility includes multiple outdoor showers, additional family restrooms, and water bottle filling stations. The multiple outdoor showers, in particular, should help ease traffic through the changing areas by giving families another way to rinse off and prepare before entering the water.
The details suggest a great deal of thought was put into how families actually use an aquatic facility.
The Features That Stole the Show
As a former competitive diver in high school, the first thing that caught my eye was the diving board.
Quincy hasn’t had a diving board in a very long time. Seeing one again brought back memories and reminded me how much fun diving can be. It also made me realize it’s something I have never really been able to share with my own children.
The three new water slides are also impressive. Not only are they bigger than they appear from the road, but they use a newer design that ends in a runoff lane instead of dumping riders directly into the pool. It may sound like a small detail, but it preserves valuable swimming space.
The deep-water area may end up becoming a favorite for local teens. In addition to the diving board, there is a 15-foot climbing wall and a rope swing that slides outward before swinging riders into the water.
The younger kids, however, may have a different favorite.
The giant play structure in the zero-depth area is difficult to appreciate until you stand beside it. It features bucket drops, water cannons, small slides, fountains, and multiple play elements happening simultaneously. Even my daughter, who is 14 years old, was almost as excited about the play structure as she was about the large slides. Honestly, I wanted to climb on it myself.
Some attractions simply make you smile the moment you see them. This is one of them.
Seeing It Through My Daughter’s Eyes
I intentionally brought my daughter because I wanted the perspective of someone who would actually use this facility with friends. Her first observation was practical. There isn’t much shade.
The old aquatic center benefited from several mature trees, and she immediately noticed that there is more concrete and significantly less natural shade at the new facility. With her fair skin, that was the first thing she keyed in on.
Then she started seeing possibilities.
She was excited about the climbing wall and the rope swing. She loved that the pool reaches 12 feet deep instead of 10 feet. The first thing she said when she realized that was that she couldn’t wait to try diving to the bottom.
Interestingly, she wasn’t most excited about the water slides. She wanted the deep end. The moment she realized the pool was 12 feet deep, she started talking about diving to the bottom and trying the climbing wall and rope swing.
She could already picture herself and her friends spending time there, climbing the wall, swinging into the water, and challenging each other. When Russ mentioned the possibility of future movie nights at the pool using the Recreation Department’s inflatable screen, she immediately lit up. The idea of hanging out with friends while watching a movie in the water sounded like exactly the kind of experience she wants to have.
Somewhere in the middle of our tour, I realized something important about this facility and what it may mean to the 98848. My daughter wasn’t talking about a swimming pool, she was talking about a place where she wants to spend time.
What This Means to You
The new Quincy Aquatic Center feels like much more than a replacement for an aging facility. It feels like an investment in community life.
The old aquatic center served Quincy well for decades and helped raise generations of children. Many people learned to swim there, celebrated birthdays there, or spent long summer afternoons there with friends and family. For many local families, the old pool wasn’t just a place to cool off. It became part of the rhythm of summer.
This new facility appears ready to create a new generation of those memories.
There will be challenges. More shade will likely be needed over time, and parents will need to pay close attention to younger children in a much larger environment. Russ indicated there are already discussions about additional seating and future shade solutions.
Those are practical issues that can be solved.
The bigger story is that Quincy now has a recreational facility that many communities our size simply do not have. It gives local families another place to gather, play, cool off, and spend meaningful time together.
If my daughter’s reaction is any indication, this place is going to be busy.
Your Chance to See It for Yourself
Everyone has been waiting for the new Quincy Aquatic Center to open, and next week residents will finally get their own sneak peek.
The Quincy Aquatic Center will host an Open House on Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m., giving community members an opportunity to walk through the new facility before it officially opens. While there will be no swimming during the event, families can explore the aquatic center, get a closer look at the slides, lazy river, play areas, and other amenities, and begin planning for the summer ahead.
The open house will also give residents a chance to purchase season passes, ask questions about swimming lessons, review facility rules, and learn more about upcoming programs and activities planned for the new center.
And because no community celebration is complete without a treat, WaFd Bank will be providing free ice cream during the event.
After months of driving by construction fences and watching updates online, this will be the first opportunity for many residents to walk through the gates and see for themselves what the community has been waiting for. Come enjoy the evening, ask questions, and take your first look at what is poised to become one of the new gathering places of summer in Quincy.
A New Chapter for Summer in Quincy
I’ve covered this project since before the fences went up. I’ve taken pictures from the berm while excavation work was still underway and watched the pools slowly take shape. Walking through it today felt different.
Construction workers were still completing final details. Equipment was still being moved. The facility isn’t officially open yet.
But it is close.
Close enough that I could already picture families floating in the lazy river, kids racing down the slides, and parents sitting nearby talking while keeping an eye on their children. Sun shades and lawn chairs will probably be competing for space around the pool deck this summer, a small trade-off for a facility that is unusually large and feature-rich for a community the size of Quincy.
On the drive home, my daughter was already talking about who she wanted to bring with her, whether she could reach the bottom of the deep end, and how fun a movie night at the pool could be. Listening to her, I realized she wasn’t thinking about construction costs, project timelines, or years of planning. She was thinking about memories that haven’t happened yet.
Multiple generations have grown up at the old Quincy Aquatic Center. It became part of their summers and part of their memories. For months, the new aquatic center has been a project we drove by and watched take shape. After walking through it this week, it no longer feels like a project. It feels like a destination. And for families throughout the 98848, another generation of summer memories is about to begin.
