Lead Stories

County approves $10M Playland Pool rehab

Advocates for retaining and renovating Playland’s historic swimming pool scored a major victory this week after Westchester County lawmakers, in a 15-2 vote, decided to inject nearly $10 million in capital improvements to bring the structure back up to par.

The decision comes after more than a year of deliberations over the ailing pool’s fate, and for the time being, sinks a prospective plan to build a new seasonal dining area that proponents of pool renovations say would have exacerbated noise and aesthetics in surrounding Rye neighborhoods.

Playland is owned by the county but is located within the city of Rye.

“The reason we’ve been advocating so strongly is that the local community spoke out in favor of keeping the swimming pool as opposed to the other uses that were discussed with Standard [Amusements],” said county Legislator Catherine Parker, a Rye Democrat.

The decision by the county Board of Legislators marks a reversal from an initial plan sent down by County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, that would have removed the pool completely, giving the amusement park’s co-managers of Playland, Standard Amusements, license to utilize the space as they saw fit. Standard Amusements, an investment firm headed by Harrison native Nick Singer, who also formerly co-managed the hedge fund Standard General, was selected to operate the amusement park in a management agreement struck in May 2016.

County Legislator Jim Maisano, a New Rochelle Republican and vocal critic of the plan to remove the pool, said, “I’m especially happy that those kids whose families can’t afford a membership at a club with a pool or for trips to the shore will have an easily accessible and affordable option to escape the brutal summer heat and humidity that we often have in the lower Hudson Valley.”

Not all lawmakers were on board with saving the pool by injecting a hefty dose of capital, however. Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, a Yorktown Democrat, and Republican Minority Leader John Testa, of Peekskill, accounted for the only opposition votes.

At a Tuesday meeting of the full legislative board, Kaplowitz said that he voted no due to his support of an alternate plan that would have installed a retractable platform over the pool that would have doubled as a dining area.

As per a management agreement, Playland is set to be solely operated by Standard Amusements, after the county expends 50 percent of the money earmarked for capital improvements.

The deal will see both parties pour $30 million each into various renovations, rides, and concessions over the course of 30 years.

An initial payment of $1.5 million that Standard was expected to make to the county has been delayed and tied to a decision on the pool. Also holding up that payment has been ongoing litigation between the county and the city of Rye over jurisdictional authority on capital projects planned by Standard for the park.

According to Dan Branda, a spokesman for the Astorino administration, the $1.5 million payment will not be received by the county until 60 days after a decision of the Rye lawsuit.

Though Rye’s lawsuit was thrown out by a judge in March, the city has since launched the beginning stages of an appeal which will have to be fully submitted before August.

Rye will also mull over filing an injunction on upcoming projects at the park that would immediately halt millions of dollars of improvements to park rides and infrastructure.

According to county Legislator Mary Jane Shimsky, a Hastings-on-Hudson Democrat, from here, the design phase of the pool’s renovation will take up to 18 months, with the construction taking an additional 16 months.