September 2 – St. Joseph park officials plan to take a major leap forward in the spring of 2026 with the opening of two new aquatic facilities in both North and South St. Joseph.
While there are still uncertainties, if all goes according to plan, the new $2 million Northside Splash Park and $3.7 million Hyde Activity Pool will open simultaneously in late spring, likely not on the same day, to allow time for grand openings.
“The goal may be two days in a row,” said Chuck Kempf, director of St. Joseph Parks, Recreation and Civic Facilities. “But there’s still a long way to go with construction and all that stuff … but yeah, the goal is to have them open pretty much in the same time frame.”
If construction allows one of the two facilities to open before the other, the city will likely consider that, even if it means the two openings cannot happen as close together as originally planned.
“The whole picture that we’re seeing now is extremely unique,” Kempf said. “It’s really unique that we’re opening two new recreational facilities, whether it’s water or not.”
Concepts for Hyde’s new shallow pool — which will be located on the same site as the old pool — are largely complete. The pool will look similar to Aquatic Park’s shallow pool and will have a lifeguard on duty. The facility is expected to have a central play structure and deck space, both in and out of the water, for multi-purpose use.
“There will be some splash park-type features in it,” Kempf said. “It will be incorporated into sort of the lip of the pool, but the pool will be somewhere between 3 and 3.5 feet deep.”
The Hyde facility will require an admission fee, unlike Liberty Oak Splash Park next door. The city is currently working on a system where families and children can easily access both facilities, either with a wristband or other item.
The Hyde project also includes major renovations to update the pool house, costing a total of $1.5 million, a boost for a building that has been largely unused for the past decade since the old Hyde Pool closed in 2015.
“There will be room for lifeguards. There will be room for park staff. There will be concession space. And then there will be a community room,” Kempf said. “That community room will be available for rent and will be available to use in conjunction with the pool when it’s open, but also year-round.”
On the city’s north side, the designs and features for the Northside Splash Park to replace Krug Pool are nearing the finish line, with key decisions to be made in the coming weeks. One is whether to design the park to allow for a very small amount of standing water, about an inch.
The Northside Splash Park will feature a nature theme that complements the greenery and stone structures of Krug Park. During the preliminary planning process, park officials were impressed by the design of two nature-based splash parks in Kansas City, executed by Confluence. With an extensive resume of high-profile projects in the region, Confluence is a leading expert in landscape architecture and urban design and is now working with the city to bring the splash park to life.
“We went to a couple of their projects and looked at them, one in Shawnee and one in Olathe, really good projects, really well thought out,” Kempf said. “We’re very pleased with the initial concepts that we’re getting.”
Dry play equipment could also be installed at Northside Park, along with traditional wet play equipment, a combination that would allow for year-round use of the facility. As planning moves forward, Kempf and city officials are excited about the opportunity to bridge generations and incorporate a play feature that reflects a longtime favorite from Krug Park’s history.
“One of those features, there’s more than one, but one of them is a slide that goes down that hill. So it’s going to be a significant slide…” Kempf said. “I think our consultant that worked with us said the most talked about feature at Krug Park was the slides.”
The St. Joseph park tax will fund much of the two projects, along with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and other sources.
A final decision will also be made later this year on whether the city will contribute up to $7 million to a partnership with the YMCA to build a 35,000-square-foot indoor pool on North Village Drive. The project was last estimated to total about $16 million.
The move does not rule out replacing the Aquatic Park pool, which would first have to be demolished in some way. But that decision is expected to depend on whether the city goes ahead with the YMCA.
