John Marshall Aquatic Center Project Details Released

Project Details:

• Facility’s official name: John Marshall Aquatic Center

• This project was a dream of former Marshall County Schools Superintendent Donald Haskins. JMHS was built in 1968, and a choice had to be made between a pool and an auditorium. From that moment, Haskins continued to have a vision of a swimming pool on the JMHS campus.

• The John Marshall Aquatic Center project was approved in the March 2017 operating levy, while Michael Hince was Marshall County Schools Superintendent.

• The current board voted in 2023 to put $15 million, from the March 2017 operating levy, into a fund that can only be used for this project to ensure completion. The cost of the entire facility is projected to be around $22 million.

• Omni Architectural and Engineer Services was awarded the bid on March 12, 2024. Omni is a West Virginia firm with four architects on staff. The aquatics specialist for Omni will be Counsilman-Hunsaker Aquatics for Life, which has provided design and operational consulting for thousands of national and international aquatics projects for the past 50 years.

• The Marshall County Schools and WVU Medicine-Reynolds partnership began to develop in 2019 with Dr. David Hess. Since then, the partnership has allowed many opportunities for Marshall County students including job shadowing, sports medicine and medical preparation/training.

• The two-story building will be a little more than 60,000 square feet, with over 7,000 square feet designated for WVU Medicine-Reynolds.

• The first floor will be level with Route 2 and will be the main entrance for WVU Medicine-Reynolds. WVU Medicine-Reynolds’ section will house a primary care physician, cardiac rehab and clinical nutrition at the site. The first floor will also house a ¼ mile indoor walking track.

• The ground floor, parking lot level, will contain the competition-sized pool and warm-up pool, as well as two classrooms that can be used together as a 60-person meeting room. There will be a multipurpose room that will be used as on-deck space for teams during swim meets and then can be used with curtain dividers to house archery, tumbling, golf and batting cages. The current JMHS weight facility will be relocated to the space. There will be a concession stand and restrooms with easy access for school and community events such as Marshall County Relay for Life, the Marshall County Schools Transportation Department’s Bus Safety Road-E-O and tennis tournaments.

• The pool and walking track will have scheduled times in which they are open for the community to use.

Construction Details:

• Extensive research has gone in to planning this facility. Representatives have visited multiple aquatic centers and have interviewed several pool experts.

• Bids for the John Marshall Aquatic Center will be published in May of 2025 with a groundbreaking in the summer of 2025.

• The projected opening for the John Marshall Aquatic Center will be August 2027.

The design of the John Marshall Aquatic Center was inspired, by not only the existing high school, but the former Sherrard, Union and Moundsville high schools.