Local Government
Roger Scott Pool Will Sit Empty All Summer—Five Years After Its Restrooms Were Condemned
A Hurricane Sally casualty, a string of broken promises, and a $670,000 fix that took half a decade to materialize.
Pensacola’s Roger Scott Pools at 2130 Summit Boulevard will be closed for the entire 2026 summer season, the price of finally building the restroom facility that city inspectors condemned back in 2021. Mayor D.C. Reeves made the announcement at his April 20 press conference, confirming that construction of a $670,000 restroom facility will require closing the pool for the season.
- The trouble traces back to Hurricane Sally in September 2020. The pool’s restroom building—which also housed staff offices—was declared structurally unsafe by the city’s building inspector in 2021. A portable toilet trailer was placed on the grass outside the fenced pool area as a temporary fix. Temporary became permanent.
Brahier Sounds the Alarm
By 2022, City Councilmember Jennifer Brahier had seen enough. In a podcast interview, she described what the pool had become under the previous administration of Mayor Grover Robinson:
“There’s a third pool there. This is the third season that it hasn’t been opened. It was full of water and debris, and just partitioned off with a sign that it’s under construction when there’s actually no construction taking place. The bathrooms are completely boarded up and separated off, with no working bathrooms. They put a toilet trailer out in the grass, outside the area, and then fenced off the area.”
Brahier also took aim at the city’s own website, which still listed lockers, showers, bathrooms, and three pools as available amenities.
- “These things, which are just fictitious at this point,” she said. She was equally direct about the budget: “There’s nothing in the budget to fix the bathroom. There’s nothing in the budget to fix the extra pool. There’s nothing in the budget to paint the flaking paint, which I actually see as somewhat dangerous around the pool as well. To me, there was no concern about this city amenity for the citizens. I mean, just a lack of respect, honestly.”
Adding to the frustration, residents who had paid for city swimming memberships were being turned away from the pool because YMCA and other camp groups were given priority access.
Listen to the June 2022 Podcast:
Reeves Makes a Promise
When D.C. Reeves took office in January 2023, he pledged to reinvest carry-forward funds into parks and recreation—including a new bathhouse at Roger Scott.
- He told Inweekly bluntly: “We’re also going to fix the Roger Scott pool bathrooms. They need to be fixed. I mean, we have a city pool that has no bathrooms, and so things like that we’re going to really focus on as well.” Listen to the podcast.
Brahier called the bathroom situation an “absolute priority.”
- The city commissioned a comprehensive design—restrooms, staff offices, storage, and additional amenities. The price tag: $264,500 for design and an estimated $1.2 million for construction.
- 2020 — Hurricane Sally damaged the pool restroom building
- 2021 — Restrooms condemned; porta-potty trailer installed
- 2022 — Brahier publicly flags the crisis; no budget fix under Mayor Robinson
- 2023 — Mayor Reeves announces reinvestment; full facility design commissioned at $264,500; construction estimated at $1.2M
- 2024 — City pivots to restroom-only design ($169,900 redesign fee); lowest bid comes in at $913,401
- 2026 — Pool closes for the season; $670,000 restroom construction begins
A Scaled-Down Solution—and a Closed Pool
In 2024, the city pulled back from the full facility and ordered a redesign—restrooms only, with provisions for future expansion. That redesign cost $169,900. Even the stripped-down version drew a lowest bid of $913,401. Then came the pivot to the current $670,000 contract, which Reeves attributed to manufacturer-level delays and a more favorable procurement outcome.
“We went from a million dollars to $670,000,” Reeves said at the April 20 press conference, touting a $325,000 savings over the 2024 proposal. “While it may not have all the same amenities of the million-dollar bathroom, that’s still a prudent taxpayer spend, I believe.”
- The tradeoff: Roger Scott Pool—one of the city’s most heavily used public facilities—will be dark all summer while work proceeds.
Five years after inspectors condemned the restrooms, Pensacola is finally building a replacement. The 2026 season will be a washout for swimmers. The question residents may be asking: What took so long?
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