Carbondale parks commission: pool construction slightly ahead of schedule, project faces large change orders and remaining fundraising gap

Construction on Carbondale’s new municipal pool is running slightly ahead of schedule, but project leaders told the Parks and Recreation Commission on March 12 that recent change orders and outstanding fundraising mean the town still needs additional money to complete the project as designed.

Cynthia Colbert, a staff member working on the pool project, told commissioners the campaign had raised $1,583,410 “as of Monday,” and that campaign materials and a paid marketing push are under way to attract more donations. She said the project team is pursuing multiple grants — including a resubmission to a quarterly T‑Mobile grant (about $50,000), an application to the Gates Family Foundation due later that week, and outreach to CORE for energy‑efficiency funding for the solar panels — and that a recent Land and Water Conservation Fund application was not funded this cycle.

The construction timeline remains favorable, Colbert said: the contractor poured the entertainment pool walls and is now stripping forms, excavating for the backwash tank and beginning the bathhouse foundation, work Colbert said puts the project roughly six weeks ahead of an earlier projection. But several change orders have been approved to address long‑term operation and safety needs.

“Safety drove us to add a…