Denison closes Waterloo Pool until further notice after fire marshal's review

Denison has closed Waterloo Pool until further notice, the city said in a notice posted Aug. 24, citing structural repairs the building needs after an evaluation by the Fire Marshal's Office. Staff are still working with consultants on what comes next, according to the notice, and the city has announced no date for reopening.

For Cooke County readers weighing where to swim, the shutdown removes another nearby public pool from the list. Gainesville's official aquatics page lists Leonard Park Aquatic Center as closed for the 2026 season. Sherman's Splash Family Aquatic Center closed for the year on Aug. 9 and, according to the Sherman parks site, returns in May 2027.

Waterloo Pool sits at 1501 W. Brock St. The city lists 903-464-4475 as the pool's phone number.

The building's troubles are on the record and predate this closure. A February 2025 Denison agenda item says two firms priced the work needed to bring the pool to ideal standards at about $4.9 million. The city did not have that money, according to the same records, so staff cut the job down to emergency repairs and planned to borrow roughly a half-million dollars through certificates of obligation repaid from the Aquatics Fund.

That earlier round of work also took the pool offline. City records show it was set to close Dec. 9, 2024, for an estimated three months while crews reinforced the structure and installed equipment including an air-exchange system. Parks staff told the Parks and Recreation Commission the repairs should add five to 10 years to the building's life if the city kept a proper maintenance plan in place.

The job was not finished by the following summer. In minutes from the commission's June 16, 2025 meeting, Denison reported that infrastructure problems had been shored up, the mechanical air-exchange system upgraded and the east and west columns plated, with about four columns along the south wall still pending. Electrical and air-exchange work were nearly done, the minutes say, and roof repairs were being pursued through insurance. The commission took no action. Before that repair cycle, in November 2023, staff had told the commission that pool operating procedures were going well.

Denison's FY2026 fee schedule prices a day at Waterloo at $5 for a city resident over 15, a dollar less for youth and seniors, and more for anyone from outside the city. Annual family passes run into the hundreds.

Money for the pool runs through the budget now before the council. The proposed FY2027 budget, dated Aug. 21, projects swimming pool revenue covering a little under half of what the city expects to spend on aquatics. The public hearing and vote are set for 6 p.m. Sept. 8 at Denison City Hall.

Public pools are standard municipal fare. The National Recreation and Park Association's 2022 snapshot found 70% of park agencies offer aquatics programming. The CDC, in figures updated Jan. 27, 2026, reports more than 4,000 unintentional drowning deaths a year nationwide and says drowning kills more children ages 1 to 4 than any other cause.