Originally conceived in 2010 by design consultants Archie Lee Coates and Jeff Franklin along with architect Dong-Ping Wong, the self-filtering, plus sign-shaped swimming pool will allow New Yorkers to swim legally and safely in the polluted East River for the first time in more than 70 years.
After over 10 years of Kickstarter campaigns, benefit parties, filtration tests, meetings with stakeholders, advisors, and entities, from MTV to Mayor Bill de Blasio, presentations, design awards, board member inclusions, garnering public support, community outreach, and plan adjustments, the Plus Pool plan was progressing steadily until the COVID-19 pandemic halted everything.
However, it looks like the innovative pool is moving forward again. “We have an official confirmation to succeed with the next steps for the project,” says Kara Meyer, Plus Pool’s managing director, in a statement to Curbed. “We have a home. Mayoral candidates are talking about it.”
Going forward, the next major hurdle for the project is regulation, which is a complicated process. While the pool’s filtration systems would be able to treat the water to swimmable standards, the quality of the water when populated with people must also be taken into account. There is also a slew of regulations involved in building in the river. And after all of that, there is the issue of funding. According to Curbed, the project should cost $20 million to $25 million, with most of this needing to come from private sources.
While there's still a lot of work to be done, securing a city-approved location looks to be a huge step in the right direction.
In 2013, Time magazine named Plus Pool one of the “25 best inventions of 2013”.
3 Comments
couldn't you build a larger normal pool (or several), that would serve more people, with that money?
And one that’s not floating above the skeletons of guys with lots of vowels in their names.
So long awaited that the office that designed no longer exists...
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