Las Cruces Natatorium open to the public for lap swimming, open swim
Leah Romero
LAS CRUCES — After nearly two years of construction, the Las Cruces Natatorium opened to the public over Memorial Day weekend.
The new indoor facility hosts an Olympic-sized pool for lap swimming and is located next door to the Las Cruces Regional Aquatic Center on Hadley Avenue.
Construction started in October 2021, but the project has been in the works for several years. Abraham Celaya, recreation facility manager for the city’s Parks & Recreation Department, explained that there were delays in finishing the construction due to supply chain issues. He added that there has been a lot of curious community members popping by the facility ahead of its opening.
“The first couple of weeks after like it was up and the parking lot was open, we had so many face prints on those windows. It was hilarious,” he said.
The pool is 50 meters long and holds 670,000 gallons of water that maintains a temperature between 80 and 81 degrees at all times. It is 12 feet at its deepest and four feet at its most shallow. The pool has a capacity for 10 50-meter lanes or 20 25-meter lanes, depending on the orientation of the lanes in the pool.
An open swim area will be sectioned off on the shallow end of the pool. The facility also has roughly 300 lockers divided among the men’s and women’s locker rooms for people to store their personal items while exercising.
Other amenities include non-slip flooring in the pool area, handicap pool lifts, swimsuit spin driers, team locker rooms for competitions, meet management rooms and several large scoreboards and screens. The two water filters run simultaneously, and Celaya explained that they turn the water over about seven times every 24 hours.
Members of the public gained access to the pool starting May 27. Operating hours are 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon Saturday through Labor Day, Sept. 4. The pool is closed Sundays. Admission is $2 per person. Reservations are not required.
Lanes will be shared among swimmers with a maximum of four people per lane for lap swimming.
According to a news release, Fitness Swim classes will be offered from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday. Open Swim sessions will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday. Admission is $4 for people 18 and up and $3 for children 2 to 17.
Celaya said management will gauge interest and demand for the first few months before incorporating special events and classes at the pool. He said local swim teams have already started reaching out about practice space. He also said Las Cruces may see more of its public high schools create swim teams now that there is a centrally located public pool.
Other special events people can expect to find in later months at the pools are water polo camps, swim lessons, scuba diving certification classes and even innertube movie nights.
The Las Cruces Natatorium is located at 1405 E. Hadley Ave. For more information about renting pool space or other general inquiries, call the Las Cruces Regional Aquatic Center at 575-541-2782 or reach out online at www.lascruces.gov/178/Parks-Recreation.
A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 3:30 p.m. June 15.
Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.
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