City looks to pair opening of new Krug splash park and Hyde pool in spring 2026

By Cameron Montemayor

St. Joseph parks officials are looking to make a big splash in spring 2026 with the opening of two new aquatic facilities in both north and south St. Joseph.

While variables remain, if all goes according to plan, the new $2 million Northside Splash Park and $3.7 million Hyde Activity Pool will open simultaneously in late spring, but likely not on the same day to provide enough time for celebratory ribbon-cutting events.

“The target may be back-to-back days,” said Chuck Kempf, director of St. Joseph Parks, Recreation and Civic Facilities. “But there’s a long way to go with construction and all of that … but yeah, the target is to open them up pretty much in the same time frame.”

If construction allows for one of the two facilities to open sooner than the other, the city will likely consider it even if it means not having the two openings as close as originally planned.

“The whole picture that we have unfolding right now is extremely unique,” Kempf said. “It’s really unique that we would be opening up two new recreational facilities, whether it’s aquatics or not.”

Concepts for the new Hyde shallow pool — which will be located in the same spot as the old pool — are largely complete. The pool will have a similar look as the Aquatic Park shallow pool and will be life-guard staffed. The facility is expected to have a central play structure and deck space both in and out of the water for multi-purpose use.

“It will have some splash park type features in it,” Kempf said. “It’ll be incorporated into kind of the edge of the pool, but the pool will be somewhere probably 3 to 3-and-a-half feet deep.”

The Hyde facility will require a fee for entry unlike the Liberty Oak Splash Park next door. The city is currently working on a system where families and children can conveniently access both facilities, whether with some form of wristband or other item.

The Hyde project also includes significant renovations to overhaul the pool house for a total of $1.5 million, a shot in the arm for a structure that has seen little use over the last decade since the old Hyde Pool closed in 2015.

“There’ll be space for the lifeguards. There’ll be space for park staff. There’ll be concession space. And then there will also be a community room,” Kempf said. “That community room will be available for rent and it’ll be available to be in use kind of in conjunction with the pool when it’s open, but also year round.”

On the north side of town, designs and features for the Northside Splash Park to replace Krug Pool are nearing the finish line, with notable decisions set to be made in the coming weeks. One includes whether or not to design the park to allow for very small amount of standing water, roughly an inch.

The Northside Splash Park will have a nature-based theme that ties with the greenery and stone structures of Krug Park. During the preliminary planning process, parks officials were impressed by the design of two nature-based splash parks in Kansas City done by Confluence. With an extensive resume of high-level projects across the region, Confluence is a leading expert in landscape architecture and urban design now working with the city to bring the splash park to life.

“We went down and looked at a couple of their projects, one in Shawnee and one in Olathe, really good projects, really well thought out,” Kempf said. “We’re really happy with the initial concepts that we’re getting.”

Dry-play equipment could also installed at the Northside park along with traditional wet-play equipment, a combination that offers more year-round use for the facility. As planning moves forward, Kempf and city officials are excited for the opportunity to bridge generations and incorporate a play feature that mirrors a longtime favorite of Krug Park’s history.

“One of those features, there’s more than one, but one of them is a slide coming down that hill. So it’ll be a significant slide …” Kempf said. “I think our consultant that worked with us said that was the most talked about feature at Krug Park were the slides.”

The St. Joseph parks tax will help finance a large portion of the two projects, along with American Rescue Plan Act funds and other sources.

A final decision will also be made later this year on whether the city will contribute up to $7 million for a YMCA partnership for construction of a 35,000-square-foot indoor aquatic facility on North Village Drive, a project that was last estimated to be around $16 million altogether.

The move does not rule out replacing the Aquatic Park lap pool, which will have to be demolished one way or another first. But that decision is expected to hinge on whether or not the city moves forward with the YMCA.