The site of Ligonier Beach is getting redeveloped, just not with a pool
Plans are moving forward to redevelop the long-shuttered property where Ligonier Beach once stood. However, the new development proposal will likely leave the site all dried out.
From 1925 when it first opened, Ligonier Beach became famous largely because of its giant swimming pool that acted as an ocean oasis in the Laurel Highlands each summer. But after flooding damaged this area back in 2018, and permanently closed the facility, Ligonier Beach has been a vacant eye sore.
However, over the course of this last summer Friends of Ligonier Beach and Ligonier Township launched a feasibility study with the Mackin Engineering Firm in Pittsburgh to see what could be done with this site.
The good news, something will be developed, but the sad news is that something won't include a pool.
Michael Strelic, the Ligonier Township Manager says that the main reason not to move forward with fixing the pool, it would cost tens of millions of dollars to do so.
"It turns out that now that we have hired professionals from Mackin Engineering to help us with this study, no amount of money can bring back the pool," said Strelic. "Just the regulatory regulations that are in place, that of course weren't in 1925 and it's in a floodway, it's in the creek, it's in the flood plain. It is just not possible to bring it back."
Friends of Ligonier Beach and several citizens KDKA spoke with on Friday said that they are disappointed by the findings of the study. But most people, like Drue Spallholz who owns the Eastwood Inn and the Runway Café directly across Route 30 from the Ligonier Beach site says, that anything will be an improvement over what is there now.
"It's a great memory, but I am really interested to see what the committee comes up with," Spallholz said. "I am really hoping that they have some functionality to the property so that the property can become a driver for the local economy like it was at the beach."
The committee that is working on this redevelopment says there's a lot more work left to do and they and the township are hoping to have a community input meeting, sometime in the next few months.