A contractor's sketch depicts the family acquatics center planned for the Army's Camp Humphreys in Pyongtaek, South Korea. (Courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
PYONGTAEK, South Korea — The U.S. Army has started work on a Family Aquatic Center at Camp Humphreys to feature pools for adults and tots, a volleyball court, refreshment area, covered stage, playgrounds and a spa, officials said.
“We’re going to construct an environment where the family can go and, anywhere from being able to have competitions with the 50-meter pool, diving competitions, all the way into the little tots being able to have a splash pool and playgrounds,” said Tim Masters, construction representative with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Far East District Pyongtaek Resident Office at Camp Humphreys.
Officials also are planning a new athletic field that will accommodate softball, soccer and flag football; the base’s Soldiers Field will be renovated and equipped for those three sports, Masters said.
At the aquatic center, soldiers and family members can spend time at a 50-meter, eight-lane competition swimming pool.
Linked to that pool will be a four-meter-deep diving well with two one-meter springboards and one three-meter springboard, Masters said.
“Then we’re going to have a recreational wading pool that will have the open flume, which is basically water falls,” he said. “It’s going to include two tube slides. One of them is going to be ... about one-and-a-half-stories high, and the other is going to be about one story high.”
But an additional pool will have “kiddie slides,” he said. “And we’ll have a resilient-floor recreation playground area for the other kids as well.”
The flooring is “the ‘spongy’ tile,” he said, “so that the kids are less prone to getting hurt.”
The volleyball court will have the same resilient flooring.
And there’ll be a concession area “where you can get your refreshments and what have you,” Masters said.
Also planned is a whirlpool spa of more than 10 feet in diameter.
“It’s going to complete the package,” he said. “Giving everybody something to look at, giving everybody something to do. So you’re not just pulling the kids in.”
The multipurpose field will consist of a conventional softball field with an outfield that also can be used for soccer or flag football. Electronic scoreboards, score booths, dugouts, accessways for the handicapped, and parking also are scheduled.
The Yojin Industrial Company Ltd. is carrying out the work under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The aquatic center, slated for completion in June 2006, will be directly behind the base bowling alley and Nitewatch club, on the north side of the installation. It will cost more than $7 million.
The athletic or “multipurpose” field, being built directly inside the base’s main gate, will cost just more than $3.5 million.
The Soldiers Field renovation is to start in December and finish by June 2006. Upgrading the field, on the southeast side of the base, will cost about $2 million, Masters said.
