Wake Forest's new $3.2 million Holding Park pool complex to open Saturday

After months of delays, the town's massive new pool complex at Holding Park will open this weekend for two days of swimming before it shuts down for the season.

The pool will be open from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Sunday. Admission will be free. Big note: The center is limited to a maximum of 300 people (so I'd recommend getting there early).

Saturday's opening festivities will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony with brief remarks by Mayor Vivian Jones and town park director Ruben Wall, along with free hot dogs, while supplies last, according to a news release. Ed Austin, the town's athletics and aquatics superintendent, tells me that the town received its operating permit for the pool today, Wednesday.

As I've reported, the pool had been slated to open in late June or early July, but very rainy weather in June delayed those plans indefinitely. Rains on June 10 and June 11 prevented workers from starting the final phase of the construction, which included pouring the concrete pool deck, installing fencing and applying the remaining pool plastering.

The project, forced by leaks in the original 75-year-old pool, started more than a year ago. As I wrote last year, while repairing a leak in the existing pool in 2016, contractors found major issues related to the integrity of the pool walls, shutting it down for both the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The pool hadn't seen major renovations for 40 years, according to town officials.

The $3.2 million complex will have three separate bodies of water when it opens: