CLEARFIELD — Tracy Heun stands in front of the glass windows that overlook the children splashing and laughing and swimming in the city's new pool.
Behind her, there are rows of cardiovascular machines — gliders, steppers, runners. All around her, there is a sense of accomplishment.
Heun, the city's community services director, has been behind the project from the beginning, even before the July 7, 2003, groundbreaking ceremony. And now that the Clearfield Aquatic Center is open for business, she can finally take it all in.
"It's really exciting," she says. "This is sort of a crowning moment."
The 72,000-square-foot facility, which opened its doors to the public June 6, features two Italian pools with stainless steel panels, PVC liner and long-term warranties, Heun said.
The leisure pool can accommodate more than 400 swimmers and features a 16-foot spiral slide, a lazy river and an aquatic playground.
A few feet away, the center boasts a 3,500-square-foot lap pool with a 1-meter diving board — the new home of the Clearfield High School swim team.
In an effort to save on costs, Heun said, Clearfield officials opted for the six-lane lap pool, which is two lanes short of the eight required to host regional meets, and saved almost $1 million.
Heun said that while the swim team will be using the pool, the city focused more closely on the pool's other uses.
"Our primary market is recreational swimmers," she said. "Water aerobics and swim lessons."
Still, for the team, the new pool is a vast improvement over the old facility, which was built in 1957, Marliss Scott, a special events coordinator for the city, said.
"It's a huge morale booster for the kids," she said.
The Falcons won't be the only group of students using the facility.
The center is built adjacent to the new North Davis Junior High School. As per an agreement with the school, patrons will share hoop space with junior high school gym classes, Heun said.
Similarly, the weight room will serve double duty. During school hours, students will have precedence on the bench press and patrons will take control during all non-school hours.
"We think it will be a happy marriage," Heun said.
When the old junior high school is demolished, the aquatic center — located at 825 S. State St. — will actually be visible from State Street.
"It will be sort of a great unveiling," Heun said.
The junior high's destruction will also make way for a few other things. The city plans to build a splash pad — a concrete area with water toys that Heun says will be like "playing in the sprinklers — sometime next summer.
And once the rubble of old classrooms is hauled away, a parking lot will be finished to alleviate a situation Heun admits is currently a mess.
Heun said the center has run into some minor problems but said things are going, well, swimmingly for the most part.
"Everything's going pretty smooth," she said. "There have been some telephone glitches and computer failures and faucets that run all day. But there haven't really been any big problems that we didn't plan for."
A feature that sets the Clearfield center apart from other facilities, Heun said, is its family locker room. The coed locker room will provide a place for families with children or elderly people who need help dressing.
"A father who doesn't want to take his daughter into the men's locker room, or a mother who doesn't want to take her son into the women's locker room, can change in here," she said.
Clearfield Aquatic Center is located next to a newly renovated 15-acre park with four baseball diamonds and three soccer fields. Heun said the Utah Jazz donated $25,000 for a full-size outdoor basketball court.
A skate park will also be constructed on the site where the old pool now stands, she said.
Heun said the center is selling more memberships than expected and the pools are also getting a lot of drop-in business.
"It's been a very positive response," she said. "I think the center is something that makes residents proud to be Clearfield residents."
E-mail: afalk@desnews.com