Proposed pool drawing.

Before last year, a pool was simply a thought or wish from the community of Garden Plain. We have our pickleball courts, tennis courts, a playground, and a few other things but nothing big. So our city council stepped it up and wrote and received a grant of $1.635 million to build a pool at City Park. The pool had many features such as a splash pad, a basketball goal, a slide, and much more. The community is very excited about this project and can’t wait for it to be finished. The process to obtain the grant for the pool wasn’t that simple though.

How did Garden Plain even end up with the grant in the first place? Well, Kati Thul was asked by the Garden Plain City Clerk, who receives emails of grant opportunities, to write this grant in Spring of 2023 after the grant became available. Thul had previously written the grant for the sidewalks leading from the school all the way to Pretty Flowers, and she was willing to try for this even bigger project. They wrote the grant and submitted it in August of 2023, and received an answer this September. This grant money was provided by the Land and Water Conservation Fund and then through the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, which is who Thul and the others were in contact with about the grant. They began working on the grant in January 2023 and submitted it on August 24, 2023.

In order to receive the grant, different kinds of information was submitted such as, expense projections, environmental assessments, official documents for the park (1972-current). They had to provide the deed, the title insurance, the project map, the floor plan of the proposed project, and all of the financial information. There was even an archaeological dig needed to make sure nothing historical or important would be disturbed. Only 50% of the pool is being paid for by the grant though, so the other half has to be paid for in some way, but how? In order to pay for this other 50% the city recently did a one cent sales tax and that, as well as a few other ways, are helping to bring money in. 

The pool is still many steps away though. A committee has been formed to go over the design and finalize it. Companies will have to bid the project, then a company will be selected to build it. But before all of that can happen something has to move. That would be the playground sitting right where the pool will be. The playground will be moved to the South side of the park underneath the trees where there is shade so the equipment will no longer get so hot from sitting in the sun. After all of this is done then they can start breaking the ground for the pool.

Many people helped to make this happen, one of them who was mentioned earlier, Kati Thul. Thul wrote the grant and is very excited to see it all happen. When asked why she is doing all of this for the town she said, “I just love our town.” She hopes to see the town grow and a great way for that to happen is to receive more amenities. “People say they would move to Garden Plain if we had more amenities, well one amenity is a pool.”  Thul said. 

The final design and construction of the pool is estimated to be about 18-24 months before completion. The people of Garden Plain are very thankful and excited for this fun new feature at City Park.