The committee working on a proposal to convert Chadron’s outdoor swimming pool into an indoor pool has picked an architect to design the project and work with supporters on bond issue to help fund it.

City manager and committee member Wayne Anderson says Dave Burbach and Burbach Aquatics of Platteville, Wisconsin, stood out among the  5 firms asked to submit their credentials and the 3 brought in for interviews.

Anderson says the pool committee…made up of community supporters, city officials, and Chadron State College vice president Dale Grant…liked the fact that Burbach has some 600 swimming pools to his credit and is working with another Panhandle town…Oshkosh…on a pool right now.

The committee also liked the fact that Burbach had come to Chadron early and was already familiar with the background of the situation when he addressed it. Anderson says Burbach has the drive and confidence needed for the project to be successful.

Chadron’s only public indoor pool has been in the Armstrong Building at Chadron State, but age and mechanical problems led the school to eliminate it as part of the multi-million dollar renovation and expansion of the gymnasium complex.

Pool supporters and college leaders came up with the idea of enclosing the city-owned outdoor pool as a joint project that would have the college also handle day-to-day operations of the resulting indoor pool.

Anderson says Burbach Aquatics should have a firm proposal for the project in 6-to-8 weeks, then will help supporters to put together a funding campaign. The cost of all of that to the city and the pool committee? Nothing, if voters don’t approve the project.

Anderson says there appears to be good support in the Chadron community for the pool conversion idea, or at least he hasn’t heard opposition yet.