Council takes plunge on HUB pool filters Pools expected to reopen by the new year

The pool filters at The HUB Recreation Center will be replaced at a cost of more than $290,000, the Marion City Council approved on Monday night.

"From the beginning we've had issues with the filters," HUB general manager Chris Georgantas told the council. "(They) should have been sand filters."

Three years after The HUB opened in 2014, Nemato, the company that made the pool-filter technology went bankrupt, and the recreation center has limped along ever since, Georgantas said.

More than $80,000 was spent in 2019 to replace the filter media.

Georgantas told the council that the costs of maintaining of the current filtration system were mounting, and that if the filters are not replaced soon, the pools will have to close.

The winning bid was $291,292 from Midwest Pool and Court of Maplewood, Missouri, the same firm that performed the fix in 2019. Georgantas said the work will be done in December with the goal of reopening the pools by the new year. The company will install sand filters within the same space as the current ones. The work will cover the lap pool, recreation pool and the spa.

"We're making it right," said Georgantas, who joined The HUB at its inception as aquatics coordinator.

The council also approved an additional $8,252 in work to the pools' ultraviolet filters. Georgantas told the council the UV filters would need replacing eventually.

Public Property Commissioner John Stoecklin asked if, after the filter replacement, that The HUB will have the "most perfect, clean swimming pool water in southern Illinois."

"That would be safe to say," said the general manager.