Roeland Park Aquatic Center

4843 Rosewood Drive, Roeland Park

Phone (913) 432-1377

A Cooperative Venture
The Roeland Park Aquatic Center officially opened on Sept. 20, 1997. Discussions between the City of Roeland Park and the Johnson County Park about the possible construction of a new facility began nearly four years earlier and were triggered by the closure in 1993 of an obsolete city pool. An intergovernmental agreement allowed the City to sell the District the approximately four acres the complex sits on. The city in turn agreed to lease-purchase the facility back from the park District over 20 years. To construct the facility, the District issued $3.3 million in revenue bonds, which freed the city from adding to its bond indebtedness. 

Amenities
The RPAC features a 50-meter inverted “C”-shaped pool with a 25-yard by-25-meter competitive area, a diving well for one- and three-meter boards and a inflatable slide; four 50-meter lap swimming lanes, and a “zero-depth” entry area including sprayers and fountains. Other amenities available throughout the year include a bath house complete with men’s and women’s locker rooms, a family change room, a concession area, expanded parking and a convenient drop-off circle drive, as well as staff offices and a control area.

Thanks to an air-supported dome which covers the main pool from September through May, the facility is available for use year-round. For approximately two weeks prior to Memorial Day, the RPAC is closed while crews remove the dome and convert it into an open air facility. It takes 30 to 40 people, working on tarps used to temporarily cover the pool, to handle the 6,800 pounds of fabric which makes up the dome.

With the dome’s removal, the facility becomes an aquatic theme park featuring not only the main pool, but a number of other facilities located outside the dome which are only operated during the summer months. These include: a 120-foot water slide, an eight-foot wide group slide, a Vortex Pool for inner tubes complete with a concrete volcano fountain, and a separate youth pool with whale slide and "lemon drop" sprayer. The dome is reinstalled each year after Labor Day, when the RPAC is again closed for about two weeks.

(Information provided by the Johnson County Parks & Recreation District)