Uhrichsville officials have several projects in the works to improve the city's 11-year-old water park before it opens back up for the season. (File photo)

Uhrichsville, Ohio - The Uhrichsville Water Park will have some noticeable improvements when it opens back up this spring. 

Mayor Rick Dorland says largest project they’re planning for the water park in 2019 is the replacement of the wooden slide deck.

“The water park is 11 years old. It’ll be 11 years old this year, and the slide deck, which is the upper deck of the slides, it’s showing some wear and tear, and it’s not unsafe by any means, but it’s something we felt as though needs attention,” he says.

Dorland says they’ll soon begin advertising for bids for the project, which is expected to run the city between $50,000 and $75,000. He says the goal is to have the work completed before opening day.

“We want to get it done as soon as possible,” he says. “We got a hold of an engineer. He came in, looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, you probably ought to do something.’ He even suggested not to wait because we said, ‘Can we wait another year?’ He said, ‘No, you better get it done,’ even though it’s not unsafe but it’s just one of those deals where we want to get it done as soon as possible.”

Dorland says there are also a few other smaller maintenance projects they want to get done before the start of the season. 

“We want to paint the pool. We wanted to paint the pool bottom the end of this season, and then the weather set in and rain and yuck, and we didn’t get the water out in time, so there again, we want to get that done,” he says. “We want to get a company in to maybe look at refurbishing the slides themselves, like repainting the slides, and then the caulking in all the joints around the pool.”

The water park is scheduled to reopen the last weekend in May for Memorial Day. 

STACEY CARMANY, TUSCO TV