Long-Delayed Long Bridge Aquatics and Fitness Center to Open This Summer

Arlington’s first cost-free-standing aquatics center could open its doors in the upcoming few of months.

“The [Long Bridge Aquatics & Fitness Center] will be opening this summer season, but it is much too considerably out to give an exact thirty day period or working day,” Dept. of Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Susan Kalish tells ARLnow.

The authorized Fiscal Yr 2022 spending budget contains funding for the opening of the facility at 475 Lengthy Bridge Travel, in Extensive Bridge Park, utilizing $2 million of a just about $10 million donation from Boeing, which has its D.C. region headquarters close by. According to the funds, the heart is slated to open in July.

As operate attracts to a near, undertaking manager Erik Seashore gave ARLnow a tour of the facility, which has a pool for aggressive swimming and a household pool, a center with health and fitness gear, and spaces for classes, get-togethers and events.

“It’s a very remarkable site,” he explained.

Perform started on the 92,000-sq.-foot swimming and recreation facility — the second of 4 phases to redevelop Very long Bridge Park — 3 years back. But the heritage of the controversial task goes back again a lot farther.

Voters authorized funding for the venture in a 2012 bond referendum, but due to increasing charges the recreation center was set on keep in 2014. A few years later on, the County Board voted to award a design deal and get began on the $60 million recreational heart. The venture broke floor in 2018.

A single hallway “will have a timeline of the project’s improvement, given that it had this sort of a very long, wealthy historical past, if you will,” Seashore said.

The Boeing donation will not just protect functioning expenses. It will also make admission cost-free for active responsibility navy people in the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore’s support spot. Family members will have accessibility to about 5,000 day-to-day passes for every yr by means of a lottery program.

“We are grateful we can figure out the value of our energetic-obligation army families by delivering them with a day of pleasurable and health in our new, state-of-the-art facility,” Board Chair Matt de Ferranti mentioned in a statement.

Jason Pak, the director of Boeing World-wide Engagement, claimed the business is happy to give customers of the armed forces easy accessibility to the facility.

“The Extended Bridge Aquatics & Exercise Centre will be critically critical in not only supplying support for the restoration and rehabilitation of assistance associates but also encourage basic health and fitness and wellbeing for absolutely everyone in our local community,” he claimed in a statement.

The group will have access to two swimming pools. Competitive swimmers, drinking water polo gamers and synchronized swimmers can use the 50-meter pool with diving towers, a whirlpool, and two moveable bulkheads (the starting off system for swimmers). Recreational swimmers can delight in the relatives pool with a splash pad, a water slide, four 25-property lap lanes, h2o volleyball and basketball areas and a lazy river.

On dry floor, the heart has an 8,000-square-foot conditioning middle with cardio and fitness gear, plus a studio for group courses. The facility also has a few community rooms and two areas for health courses, events and gatherings.

The revamped Lengthy Bridge Park features far more than 10 acres of new parkland for relaxed use, a new community artwork piece and out of doors house for festivals and specific occasions.

“This is an location that can truly exceed anticipations,” Beach claimed.

Down the street, even much more is proposed for the park, together with an observation platform, an athletic discipline constructed atop an expanded parking large amount, and an indoor athletic centre featuring a climbing wall, squash courts and a multipurpose discipline.

From the county’s internet site:

Phase 3B:

Period 3B will entire the outdoor park elements of Extensive Bridge Park. A fourth full dimensions, rectangular, lighted, artificial grass athletic field will be created in excess of the area parking that was constructed in Section 1. The current sloping sides of that great deal will be slice again below the new subject, increasing the good deal to about 254 areas. Last of all an elevated walkway will be prolonged from the forget east throughout the adjacent railroad tracks to an observation platform to be built on County-owned assets to the east of the tracks. The observation system will have panoramic views of the Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary and the Washington DC skyline and will deliver options for interpretation. The walkway and platform will be made to harmonize with other park attributes and their surroundings. To safeguard delicate plant and animal species in and along Roaches Run, the system will be constructed in an environmentally delicate method and will not deliver any community accessibility to the floor.

Stage 4:

Section 4 will total the Aquatics, Wellness & Health and fitness Facility by including a significant Several Exercise Middle (MAC) on the web site of the Period 2 area parking ton. The heart of the MAC will be a huge area that can accommodate indoor soccer, futsal, basketball, volleyball, tennis, and local community activities amid other routines. Additional fitness place and team work out rooms will be integrated. An elevated indoor strolling/jogging trail will be manufactured all-around the MAC. The Facility will also consist of racquetball and/or squash courts and a climbing wall. On the north close of the constructing, two conference rooms with whole sights of the monumental skyline will be readily available for rental and events. 5 hundred and forty 7 (547) parking areas for the Facility will be supplied in an underground construction below the new addition. The Esplanade will be accomplished to its most northern access and accessibility to it will be extended all around the indoor facility.