Memphis needs a waterpark for all ages (Millington, Henderson: apartments, insurance)

[psi2007]

Memphis has no nice public swimming pools or waterparks. The few spray parks are okay for little kids but they're pitiful for adults. We need a waterpark like Whitewater in Atlanta or so many others. There are plenty of sites in Memphis to put one. Shelby Farms comes to mind. Have you ever been to the Mandalay Bay Hotel pool in Las Vegas? Its a manmade beach. Come on Memphis. Its hot and dry.

[Ginsaw]

The Memphis area had a wonderful and real popular swimming beach and/or waterpark up til recent times - Maywood Beach - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In today's world I suspect that insurance costs along with related major expenditures for security and police presence would be serious problems to overcome.

[Johnny Ryall]

Urban waterparks are usually pretty nasty. The best ones in the southeast are usually remote resort destinations like Pearl River in Mississippi & Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Here's a few minor options in the Memphis metro.

The currently under construction Kroc Center.
Artist's rendering of Kroc Center of Memphis exterior
Photo Credit : COURTESY TRO JUNG | BRANNEN
Indoor aquatic center will be part of recreational facilities at Kroc Center.
Photo Credit : COURTESY TRO JUNG | BRANNEN

Life Time Fitness
115,000-square-foot center


The G. W. Henderson, Sr. Aquatic Center is Mississippi's largest natatorium.
The 39,000 sq ft. state-of-the-art Aquatic Center features a 2000 sq. ft. children's play pool with spray features, and an 8-lane, 50 meter, Olympic competition pool, with
17 ft. diving well, 1 and 3 meter springboards and 5, 7.5, and 10 meter platforms.
The Aquatic Center contains men's, women's, and family locker rooms, all equipped with private showering and personal lockers. The Henderson Aquatic Center has grandstand seating for 350 people for aquatics events, a full-service pro shop and full-service concession facilities. Programs at the Aquatic Center include swim lessons, adult and senior water aerobics classes, SCUBA and snorkeling instruction, and canoeing classes.

[DubbleT]

Adventure River and the Gulf of Mexico swimming pool at the riverwalk bit the dust ages ago too. I guess most people in Memphis would rather go somewhere else to swim, if they swim at all.

[Johnny Ryall]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Adventure River and the Gulf of Mexico swimming pool at the riverwalk bit the dust ages ago too. I guess most people in Memphis would rather go somewhere else to swim, if they swim at all.

Bud Boogie Beach @ Mud Island was not feasible as a water park. It was more experimental than anything. Not to mention, the filtration system wasn't even designed as such. Memphians enjoy swimming like most Americans, in residential/ private pools.

[DubbleT]

Most people I know in Memphis don't have a pool, so they all run off to Heber Springs, Pickwick or Sardis on the weekends. Public swimming areas just don't seem to do well in Memphis, the community pools are a joke and even the pools at the university and the Y aren't great.

[Ginsaw]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Most people I know in Memphis don't have a pool, so they all run off to Heber Springs, Pickwick or Sardis on the weekends.

- or to their neighbor's pool.

Want to be the most popular on the street? Just put in a pool..

[Johnny Ryall]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Most people I know in Memphis don't have a pool, so they all run off to Heber Springs, Pickwick or Sardis on the weekends. Public swimming areas just don't seem to do well in Memphis, the community pools are a joke and even the pools at the university and the Y aren't great.

What data are you looking at that tells you there are low quanity & quality pools in Memphis? It's not a Forbes list is it? Granted I wouldn't go swimming at a public pool in a high crime neighborhood, but I had the pleasure of living in a city which consistently ranks among the U.S.'s best and most well kept park systems & their public pools are a bunch of wild pool pissin' kids. I have no problem with a majority of pools I've been to in the Memphis area. Just look at a few I mentioned above. And the Y, which one? Must not be the newly renovated one downtown or the Schilling Farms location or the Millington location. Heber Springs, Pickwick & Sardis? People from all around flock to those places, they are beautiful. What does that have to do with anything? Maybe you're not really a pool connoisseur like you thought you were.

[DubbleT]

Where did I say I was a pool connoisseur? What list? I thought I was pretty clear in saying "most people I know", personal experience, you know? I only know two or three people with their own pool in Memphis, outside of people living in apartments. The families I know would rather go to a lake than go to a pool in the city. Some of them went to Maywood before it closed.
The pools at the U of M and the Y at Walker and on Quince, out in the area I lived in, were not great. Downtown was still a dump the last time I visited. Glad they renovated it. Schilling Farms, Olive Branch, Millington, eh, always considered they were meant for the people living in those suburbs. Never really thought of them as Memphis amenities.
It still doesn't change the fact that the Memphis public does not seem to have embraced the water park they did have, the riverwalk beach was a flop, Maywood closed, the community pools are dumps, and having a couple of decent pools at the Y isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for Memphians supporting public pools.

[Memphis10AC]

The reason Adventure River closed was because they didn't keep it up. Toward the end of its existence, it was not uncommon to find large branches, huge patches of grass and snakes and rats floating around in the water...