New sports pools coming?
 

I'm wondering if there are any new sports pools for lap swimming coming in the new villages in the south. Or maybe even an indoor pool in the Eastport area? I haven't seen any announcements.

A sports pool is planned at Eastport.

Believe it when you see it. Up and running. Not before.

There's also a nice new olympic size pool at the new charter high school Given that we let the high school use the Laurel Manor pool for many years, I'm sure they're going to reciprocate with us......

Something. I might have asked when I was looking for a house.

Don’t plan on an indoor pool.

I understand there aren't many plans for regional rec centers to be built in the south (Which have sports pools) except Eastport. But that like everything will probably change. I wish they gave us lap swimmers more time. Most of the sports pools give limited lap and water walkers pool time. Between water volley ball.and water aerobics it's hard to get a lane. I personally go to ezell at 6:45 am to get a lane. It would be nice to have a couple dedicated pools for walkers and swimmers. I don't mind going further north for it if it's not going to happen south. Have found limited lanes at all the sports pools.
(Look at the schedule in the paper..
) At least give us a couple of days a week where we don't have to vacate the pool for water aerobics or water volleyball. I have limited mobility and swimming laps and pool walking is the only workout I can do.

Have you shared your thoughts with the Rec Dept?

Yes I have...I asked them why we had to exit the pool at 8 15 when it says combo swim is till 8 50. Was told they need to prepare the pool for water aerobics. Btw those poor people wait an hour or more in the sun to get into those classes! I feel for them. The rec center told me it was a safety issue. I am not sure the designers of the sports pools were aware of these pools are needed especially for our age group. Ps. I have tried swimming laps in the adult pool ad the rec center suggested. That was quite an interesting challenge !

Swimming is great exercise as we age, good for muscle building and cardiovascular health.

I am surprised by the lack of sports pools, even north of 44. Agree, there should be more time for lap swimming.

Couldn’t agree more, lap swimmers get the short end of the stick. Available times mostly limited to sunrise and sunset (especially during the time of the year with shorter days), while everyone else gets the prime time of the day. Not being an early morning person, my wife gets very tired of me swimming just about every day when most people are having dinner.

Probably the best thing that happened during the 9 years we have had a home in the Villages. Lap swimmers in the northern section finally get to use the Laurel Manor sports pool : )

I asked about an indoor pool since they will be including indoor pickleball courts at Eastport. It's true that you can swim easier than you can play pickleball when it's raining, but it's harder to get motivated to go for a swim than to play pickleball on the colder days.

I agree that the sports pools should offer more opportunities for lap swimming. There are many days when water volleyball takes over all the pools in the south (Ezell, Everglades, Spanish Moss, Rohan) in the noon to 3pm time. They should stagger the timing across locations so there's always at least 1 pool nearby for lap swimming at any given time of the day.

I have shared my thoughts with many people at the recreation department, including going straight to the top to John Rohan, offering multiple reasonable and well thought out suggestions to help increase lap swimming opportunities. I would have been better off utilizing my time banging my head against a wall. The only result I have seen is lap swimming time continuing to get squeezed out. It’s very frustrating, the sports pools are in very high demand and organized group functions like water volleyball and water aerobics are always given priority over lap swimming.

Can you tell us where that info came from. I would like to have a look. We are looking at moving south and are researching everything we can get our hands on.

Just take a look at the map
https://www.districtgov.org/departme...ges/recmap.pdf

I see 3 sports pools south of 44.
Sure, more are planned, but to date (it’s been 5/6/7 years), they put 3 in