Everyone In

Transformation begins by listening

By Ryan Geismar

Just a few years ago, Ziegler Park in Cincinnati, Ohio, used to be a dangerous place. The pool was only open a few months a year. Adults hung out in the playground and drank alcohol. Drive-through drug dealing and violence were commonplace. Only a few days before a planned meeting to discuss the park’s future, a shooting occurred at the basketball court, and a site walk-through was held with police crime-scene yellow tape still wrapped around some of the fence. It was a place that desperately needed change, but the change needed to be grounded in the community.

Photo: Josh Beeman Photography

In 2016, this park, that bridges the urban-core neighborhoods of Pendleton and Over-the-Rhine (OTR), became the focus of a transformative process that would lead to a multi-million-dollar renovation and ripple effects of reinvestment in the blocks surrounding the park. It was a partnership project among 3CDC (the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation), the Cincinnati Park Board, and the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. While the renovated park includes upgraded basketball courts, a children's playground, a game grove, and a great lawn with a parking garage underneath, the centerpiece is really the swimming pool, which is the only deep-water pool in the neighborhood.

A public swimming pool is vital to residents of dense urban neighborhoods like Pendleton and OTR. It serves as a healthy and safe place for social interaction, recreation, training, and cooling off in a hot summer. Although a pool existed at Ziegler Park prior to the renovation, it was small and underutilized—only 1,500 people visited the pool during 2015, the last year it was open before the renovation. In 2017, the first year of the renovated pool, there were 19,000 visitors, surpassing the 2015 attendance number in the first week of operations. And, in 2018, that number increased to 34,000 visitors.

Public Participation

Much of that success was due to the project goals of inclusion for the pool and the park as a whole, and the collaboration of many organizations from the neighborhoods. An 18-month design process, led by Human Nature, the park designer, in collaboration with BCI on the aquatic features, included robust community engagement at each phase. Community engagement can sometimes be limited by active participation from a narrow, vocal demographic. To overcome this limitation, the project team devised an engagement strategy to solicit feedback from the full spectrum of current and prospective park users.

This was accomplished by selecting venues in the neighborhood (e.g., schools, community centers); accessing a variety of communication channels, including community, church, school, and social-service networks; and diversifying the method for sharing information and collecting feedback through in-park interviews and a series of public workshops, including a children-focused interactive session where neighborhood children were invited to share their ideas for the play environments through sketches and models. Participation exceeded expectations. Hundreds of participants provided insights that focused the design of the overall park and aquatic facilities on serving the neighborhood—children and adults. The results were inspiring!

From a physical-design perspective, the community asserted the need for a deep-water pool to teach essential life-saving swimming skills, as well as a zero-depth entry to build confidence among those new to the water. Further, a diving board, climbing wall, and lap lanes provide amenities for a variety of aquatic adventurers. Adjacent to the pool deck is a custom sprayground, with larger-than-life cattail and wetland-plant spray features to complete the urban ecosystem. Together, the aquatic offerings appeal to users of all abilities, confidence-levels, and interests.

Accessibility To All

Pool membership program options were designed to be accessible to all. In addition to offering low daily rates, the pool’s “Everybody In” program has been designed to welcome all who wish to become season pass holders. Season passes are offered on a sliding scale based on income level, and the park accepts donations to help cover the costs of season passes for families who cannot afford to pay the full rates.

Prior to the first season of operations, 3CDC worked with several affordable housing providers in the neighborhood, including Over-the-Rhine Community Housing (OTRCH) and Brickstone Properties, to spread the word about the sliding-scale rates for pool membership to their tenants. In addition, a generous contribution was made by the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH) to cover the cost of pool memberships for individuals living in buildings owned by OTRCH and Brickstone Properties, who couldn’t afford a membership. In 2017, OCCH paid for 96 season passes (covering 286 individuals). In 2018, OCCH paid for 94 season passes (covering 264 individuals).

Photo: 3CDC

3CDC has operated the pool in partnership with a third-party pool management company since the renovation was completed in 2017. In addition to pool memberships, the organization has focused on serving low-income neighborhood youth and their families by offering free programming, including swim lessons, safety clinics, swim team, and summer camp (a portion of which is spent at the pool). In 2018 alone:

• 163 children attended free swim lessons

• 30 individuals attended free swim clinics

• 33 children participated in a free swim team

• 80 neighborhood youth attended free summer camp

• 77 percent of pool passes were sold to families making less than $50,000 per year, including 69 percent to families making less than $35,000 per year.

Between the 2017 and 2018 summer swim seasons, participation in swim lessons, swim clinics, and summer camp increased 355 percent. These numbers do not even take into account the new swim team, the Over-the-Rhine Rhinos, which was considered a great success in the pilot year (2018), attracting 33 team members—many of whom learned to swim that year.

Additionally, 2019 continues the upward trend, with 271 children taking lessons and 35 adults signed up for the first-ever adult swim lessons.

The Ziegler Park pool serves as the centerpiece of an upgraded urban park that is transforming the neighborhoods around it and the lives of the people who live, work, and play there. By taking the time to listen carefully and build a new vision for the park that was responsive to the community’s input, the new pool and park can now fulfill the potential that urban parks are intended to provide—serving as a social hub, wellness center, and living room for the community.

Ryan Geismar, PLA, ASLA, LEED-AP, is a senior landscape architect at Human Nature and was the lead designer for Ziegler Park. Reach him at (513) 281-2211, or rgeismar@humannature.cc.