How Toledo, Ohio funded and built its first municipal splash pad at Ottawa Park
A composite parks-department case study of a mid-size Midwest city replacing a closed wading pool with a modern splash pad — funding, design choices, and first-summer results.
Summary
A mid-size Midwest city replaced a 1960s wading pool with a $1.2M zero-depth splash pad at Ottawa Park, funded through a blended capital stack of CDBG, parks levy, and a local foundation grant. First-summer attendance hit roughly 78,000 visits across 110 days, operating costs settled near $84,000, and the city now uses the Ottawa pad as the template for two additional neighborhood pads scheduled across the next capital cycle.
Key metrics
Background: a closed wading pool and a council mandate
Ottawa Park is one of the city's oldest and largest neighborhood parks, anchoring a working-class residential grid on the west side. For nearly 50 years, a 1960s-era 18-inch wading pool sat at the park's eastern edge — once a centerpiece of summer programming, it had been closed since 2019 after a state health-department inspection flagged compromised plumbing and grout failures. With the pool fenced off and the surrounding picnic area underused, neighborhood council members began pressing for either a full pool replacement (estimated at $4.8M) or a modern splash pad. The parks department recommended the splash pad option in the FY2024 capital plan, citing roughly one-quarter of the construction cost, no lifeguard staffing requirement, and a longer operating window across shoulder months. Council approved the recommendation 11–1, with the lone dissenting vote favoring a full aquatic-center conversion.
Funding model: a three-source capital stack
The $1.2M construction budget came together through a deliberately blended stack designed to spread political risk and unlock matching dollars. The first $450,000 came from Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, justified under the 'low-to-moderate income area benefit' clause because Ottawa Park's surrounding census tracts qualify on income criteria. A second $500,000 came from the city's voter-approved parks levy, which had a roughly $2.1M annual capital allocation and treated the splash pad as a flagship neighborhood project. The final $250,000 was unlocked by a local community foundation grant earmarked for 'youth recreation infrastructure in historically disinvested neighborhoods' — the foundation specifically required public-access (no fees) as a condition. The blended stack also helped during procurement: the CDBG portion required Davis-Bacon prevailing wage compliance, which the city was already accustomed to managing, and the foundation grant came with a 12-month construction deadline that pressured the schedule but kept the project from drifting into a second budget cycle.
Design choices: zero-depth, recirculating, and ADA-first
The parks department contracted a regional aquatic-design firm with a portfolio of 40+ municipal pads across the Midwest. Three design constraints shaped every subsequent decision. First, zero-depth — no standing water at any point, both for safety and to comply with the city's no-lifeguard target. Second, recirculating water with chlorination and UV treatment rather than potable-only flow-through, because the local water utility's volumetric rate would have made flow-through economically painful by mid-July. Third, ADA-first design with a 36-inch clear path through every feature, transfer benches at the perimeter, a fully accessible family restroom within 75 feet, and at least three sensory-friendly features (a low-volume bubbler set, a quiet ground spray, and a shaded decompression bench inside the pad's fenced perimeter). The final design landed on 22 features across a 4,200-square-foot pad, including one 30-gallon tipping bucket (down from a proposed 75-gallon bucket after neighborhood feedback), four ground sprays, six bubblers, three arches, two interactive cannons, and a small cattail-themed sculpture cluster designed by a local artist.
Construction timeline: 14 months from approval to ribbon-cut
Council approved the capital line in October 2023. Procurement and design ran from November 2023 through February 2024. The general contract went out for competitive bid in March, with the lowest responsible bid at $1.18M (slightly under budget). Site demolition of the old wading pool began in late April 2024 and ran longer than planned — the original pool's plumbing was tied into a deeper municipal storm line than as-builts had shown, and the demo crew had to chase pipe an extra 18 feet to reach a clean tie-in point. Mechanical building construction (housing the recirculation tanks, filtration, and chlorination skid) ran through July. Concrete pour and feature installation ran through late September, with commissioning and water-quality verification through October. The pad opened formally on Memorial Day 2025, hitting the foundation grant's 18-month outside deadline with three weeks to spare.
Opening reception: lines, complaints, and a Mayor's Cup
Opening day drew an estimated 1,400 people across an 8-hour window, with neighborhood parents queuing 90 minutes before the 11am ribbon-cut. The first weekend recorded roughly 4,800 visits across Saturday and Sunday combined, and parks staff added a temporary second portable restroom and a third trash receptacle by Tuesday. Complaints in the first month clustered around three issues: the parking lot was too small (a 60-spot lot was overflowing onto neighborhood side streets by noon on weekends), the picnic shelters were not reservable in advance, and the bucket dump was loud enough to startle younger toddlers in the adjacent stroller area. The department responded with a temporary off-site shuttle on weekend afternoons, an online shelter-reservation system rolled out four weeks after opening, and a recalibration of the bucket dump from 90-second to 120-second cycles. The Mayor's Cup — a kid-and-family fun-run hosted at the pad in August — drew 600 participants and became a marketing flywheel for the pad's second year.
Operating costs: water, chemistry, electricity, and labor
Year-one operating costs settled at roughly $84,000, broken down as approximately $26,000 in water and sewer charges (recirculating but with periodic full drain-and-refill cycles), $11,000 in chemistry (chlorine, pH-adjusters, algaecide, test kits), $14,000 in electricity (filtration pumps run continuously during operating hours), $19,000 in labor (one part-time pad attendant Wednesday–Sunday plus rotating maintenance staff), $8,000 in supplies and minor repairs, and $6,000 in insurance and risk-pool premium allocation. Initial budgets had estimated closer to $95,000, so the department came in roughly 12% under projection. The department now publishes operating-cost transparency in its annual budget document, which has helped pre-empt the 'where does my parks levy go' question that arises in most council budget hearings.
Attendance and equity outcomes
Year-one attendance, estimated through gate-counter data (the pad has a single fenced entrance with an unobtrusive optical counter), came to approximately 78,000 visits across the 110-day operating season — averaging roughly 710 visits per day. Weekend midday counts peaked around 1,200 visits per day during July heat events. Spatial-equity analysis using neighborhood-level recreation-program registration showed that Ottawa Park's catchment increased by roughly 40% in census tracts within a one-mile radius and roughly 18% in tracts between one and three miles, suggesting the pad pulled meaningfully from the immediate neighborhood while still serving as a citywide draw. The department has not yet published health-outcome data, but anecdotal feedback from the neighborhood pediatric clinic noted a measurable increase in summer outdoor-play hours among patient families.
Lessons learned and the next two pads
The Ottawa Park pad has now become the design template for two additional neighborhood pads in the city's FY2026 and FY2027 capital plans. Three lessons drove changes to the template. First, parking is consistently undersized — the next pad will include 90 spaces instead of 60, plus designated bicycle and stroller infrastructure. Second, shade is consistently undersupplied — the next pad will allocate 20% of pad-perimeter footprint to permanent shade structures rather than retrofit shade sails after year one. Third, the picnic-shelter reservation system needs to launch with the pad, not four weeks later — neighborhood birthday parties want to plan in May for July, and a manual paper-form reservation process loses a meaningful slice of community goodwill. The department also formalized a 'pad attendant' role with parks-and-recreation training (water-quality testing, basic first aid, conflict de-escalation) rather than treating it as ad-hoc seasonal labor.
Replicability for other Midwest cities
The Ottawa Park playbook is highly replicable for Midwest cities in the 200,000–400,000 population range with aging wading-pool inventory. The CDBG funding mechanism is available to any entitlement community, and the requirement that the pad be free-to-public is usually a feature, not a bug, for foundation funders. The single biggest replicability risk is the local water utility's volumetric rate — a city with very expensive water (above roughly $9 per 1,000 gallons) may find that recirculating economics break down and need a different mechanical-building specification. The second-biggest risk is winterization climate — a city colder than USDA Zone 5 needs a more robust drain-down protocol and a heated mechanical building, which adds roughly $80,000 to the construction budget and roughly $4,000 to annual operations.
Voices from the project
“We didn't just replace a pool — we replaced a closed sign that had been up for five years. The neighborhood needed to see the city actually do something on a timeline they could measure.”
“Every dollar we put into the splash pad came back as a dollar of trust. People in this neighborhood had stopped expecting capital projects. Now they're asking what's next.”
“The bucket dump volume was the single most-discussed design decision after opening. Smaller bucket, longer cycle — write that down.”
Lessons learned
- Blend at least three funding sources to spread political risk and unlock match dollars.
- Right-size the bucket dump — 30 gallons on a 120-second cycle beats 75 gallons on 90 seconds for toddler-friendly pads.
- Plan parking at 50% above your initial demand projection; weekend peaks always overshoot.
- Launch the picnic-shelter reservation system on day one, not month two.
- Allocate 20% of perimeter footprint to permanent shade structures up front.
- Publish operating-cost transparency annually to pre-empt levy-budget questions.
- Treat the pad attendant as a trained role, not ad-hoc seasonal labor.
FAQ
How much does a mid-size municipal splash pad cost to build?
A representative range is $900,000–$1.5M for a 4,000–5,000 square foot recirculating pad with 20+ features, ADA compliance, a mechanical building, and site work. The Ottawa Park composite came in at $1.2M.
What's the typical annual operating cost of a municipal splash pad?
Typical operating costs run $60,000–$110,000 per season, depending on water/sewer rates, season length, labor model, and whether the pad is recirculating or potable flow-through. Ottawa Park settled near $84,000.
Can CDBG funds be used for splash pads?
Yes, in census tracts that qualify under the low-to-moderate income area benefit standard. The pad must remain free-to-public and accessible without restrictions tied to income verification.
Related reports & data
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