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The city announced this week that the Columbia Pool in North Portland will be demolished later this year.
The pool, which shut down in 2022 after engineers deemed it unsafe, became a flashpoint for Portlanders in the area who begged the city to find a way to keep it open, even if only seasonally, citing a pool desert in North and Northeast Portland.
After Mayor Keith Wilson put a one-year pause on the demolition in 2025 at the request of District 2 city councilors, the demolition now appears to be moving forward. Though the pool was shuttered permanently in 2022, it had been closed since the pandemic hit in 2020.
Portland Parks and Recreation blamed its budget woes for the inability to rehab the facility.
“Ultimately, securing the resources necessary to fund the reopening or reconfiguration of the facility was not viable,” said Parks spokesman Mark Ross. “Without sustainable long-term funding, Portland risks losing additional community assets over the next 15 years.”
Voters last November approved a Parks Levy estimated to bring in $91 million annually for the next five years. Even with that funding, parks officials have said they’ll only be able to maintain current service levels, not increase them. And parks officials have warned that the levy won’t result in a meaningful reduction in the $759 million worth of deferred maintenance across parks facilities, since the vast majority of the money can’t be used for that purpose.
