Salzburg's problem pool

Finally open again: pupils think it’s “cool”

The sports pool is now open again for schoolchildren from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

The Paracelsusbad in Salzburg has been back in operation with a network since Monday. Pupils are thrilled. Some teachers no longer believed it would reopen.

The long wait is over for now. "Are we jumping today?" dozens of pupils asked their teachers on the way from their school to the Paracelsusbad in Salzburg. Classes from Doppler-Gymnasium and Gymnasium Zaunergasse enthusiastically took to the sports pool from 8 am. And finally they heard a teacher shout: "Now we're going up the tower!".

School swimming was pushed back
Instead of reopening in July as announced, the city of Salzburg only reopened its breakdown-ridden swimming temple yesterday. Many children and young people hardly got to swim during the 14-month lockdown and before that during Corona. "There are classes here where 11 out of 27 pupils can't swim," says one teacher thoughtfully.

The first regular swimmer was Julian Kessler.

(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

The pupils were all the more delighted on Monday. They were able to swim in four lanes and, above all, jump from the diving boards into the cool water. "Cool!" could be heard echoing through the large hall. It is now equipped with a safety net underneath the slatted ceiling to prevent anything from falling. "We almost didn't believe it would open," said sports teacher Andreas Sandmayr with relief.

20 schools have booked weekly appointments for the current school year. Regulars like Julian Kessler can now swim their laps again every week. A few minutes after 10 a.m., he was the first guest in the regular pool area. "It's so handy to have this pool in the city again," said the university assistant enthusiastically. Operations manager Sönke Eckl-Henningsen greeted him with a smile. Only recently it was "Water march!". It took four days to fill the pools, which had been empty for months, with 800 cubic meters of water.

A prestige project with many mishaps

Since its opening, the Salzburg Paracelsusbad has repeatedly experienced problems. During the construction phase, the basement flooded with water. After disputes, the restaurant tenant backed out again. Then the chlorine levels in the children's pool were too high. At the beginning, a lack of privacy protection allowed passers-by in the spa garden to see into the changing rooms. The prestige project never came to rest since it opened in 2019.

The mishap that led to the final disaster dates back to July 2023, when part of the visually striking slatted ceiling suddenly hung down - directly above the family pool!

Nothing has been renovated since the lockdown
It only slowly became known what had led to this and the extent of the damage. The City of Salzburg, as the client, announced that inferior screws were to blame for the disaster. The construction company carrying out the work had installed them and relied on an expert, which the city has known since December 2023. But nothing has been remedied to date. Bureaucracy may have played a role in this. The complicated ceiling construction is another. It is a prototype, they argue. The pool, which cost almost 60 million euros, has been open again since Monday - until the refurbishment is due to begin in spring.