Tina and Kate Quigley

By Bobbi Bowman, The McLean Ear

MCLEAN, VA – A month from now the Spring Hill Recreation Center, our community-wide swimming pool, fitness center and kiddie camp, closes for a $1 million facelift.

The recreation center located on Lewinsville and Spring Hill  Roads across from the Springhill Elementary School will get a brand new entrance, 250 more parking spaces, spruced up locker rooms, more class space, a new climate system for the heated indoor  pool and improvements in the fitness room.

Some of us members hope they can just get rid of sewer-like smell that sometimes sweeps the building.

The center closes Aug. 9 and reopens in mint-new condition Oct. 17. Then you can enter straight from Lewinsville Road. No more turning on Art Nauman and then into the center’s parking lot.

Regina Wolbarsht, of McLean, now comes to the center four times a week. She’ll miss it while it’s closed. “It’s necessary. It’s a fantastic recreation center and it’s run very, very well,” she said complimenting recreation center director Marcellous Cooper. ”

The renovation are necessary and they will make the center better,” she said,  as she left her martial arts class.”I will certainly miss the swimming pool,” said Wolbarsht, a member since 1993.

Regina Wolbarsht

Gurbax Sani, of McLean: “I love it so but I’ll have to go some place else.”  Sani, a member for nine years, said he used to swim now “I love the sauna room. It’s the best sauna room.”

Tina Quigley, of McLean, was fetching daughter Kate, 4,  from Kiddie Camp. “It’s an inconvenience but it needs to be renovated,” she said.

Dranesville Supervisor John Foust said he secured the money for the renovation soon after his election to the board of supervisors in 2007. Foust said with the support of other board members they added $5 million to a $15 million bond issue for the county’s Parks and Recreation Authority. The $20 million bond issue also paid for other park improvements in the McLean area including a bridge in River Bend Park, Foust said.

“I’m grateful to the Park Authority for making our recreation center a priority,” Foust said Thursday. “It will be a dramatic improvement in the comfort and appearance of the center.”

The center’s premier attraction: the heated indoor 25-Yard by 25-meter swimming pool with ramp and two one-meter diving boards, a poolside spa, beach and wading areas.

The center also has a Racquetball/Walleyball court with glass back walls, and  a Fitness Room featuring a FitLinxx Circuit. The fitness room was doubled in size a few years ago and now has state of the art machines and flat panel TV sets showing a variety of programs throughout the day.

Where to go while Spring Hill gets spruced up: Oak Marr RECenter, 3200 Jermantown Road, Oakton, 703-281-6501.

Please leave a comment telling us how you feel about losing Spring Hill for two months.