About $3.1 million in projects are planned or under way in and around the city of Davenport, Wash., to upgrade a community park and add recreational facilities, including a new public swimming pool, skate park, park pavilion, and baseball and softball fields.

Meridian Construction Inc., of Spokane Valley, has begun work under an $834,000 contract to build the swimming pool, which will replace a pool constructed in the 1920s. City of Davenport administrator Steve Goemmel says the old pool hasn't been used for several years because it leaked, but the city had to scale back an earlier plan that included a children's splash pad, because the bids it received were higher than the approved bond amount for the project, which will cost a total of about $989,000, including design and engineering.

The new pool will be 75 feet by 25 feet, and will be equipped with a diving board, Goemmel says. The contractor also will construct a bathhouse that will be integrated with the park's current bathrooms and will have a lifeguard station and concession area. The city could add the splash pad later, he says. The project was designed by the Spokane office of Thomas, Dean & Hoskins Inc., a Great Falls, Mont.-based engineering firm. Goemmel says the pool is expected to be completed around the beginning of September.

In addition to the swimming pool, the city plans to construct a pavilion at the city park, and a footbridge crossing Cottonwood Creek. That combined $75,000 pavilion and bridge project is being done to replace the previous picnic shelter and footbridge at the park, which were badly damaged in this past winter's storms, Goemmel says. City employees will construct the pavilion with assistance from Lions Club volunteers, who have selected a pavilion design similar to one located at Mirabeau Point Park, in Spokane Valley, he says.

Nearby, on a vacant city lot that also borders Cottonwood Creek, the city plans to build a 50- by 75-foot concrete skate park, Goemmel says. American Ramp Co., of Joplin, Mo., will construct the $45,000 project, which the Spokane office of Anchorage, Alaska-based USKH Inc. designed. That work will begin soon, he says.

North of town, the city is leasing 40 acres of land located near state Route 25 to Wheatland Little League, a Davenport-area nonprofit. Volunteers are clearing land there in preparation for construction of the two Little League fields, a softball field, and a baseball field. The Davenport School District is helping to pay for that $2 million project, but the organization is still raising funds for construction of the project. Once it's built, the school district plans to use the baseball field for its high school baseball team, Goemmel says. Thomas, Dean & Hoskins designed the baseball and softball complex, and Sherry Pratt Van Voorhis PS, of Spokane, is the landscape architect for the project, he says.