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The City of Loveland will continue maintaining the following aquatic areas during the summertime: The free-to-access splash pads at Fairgrounds Park and Loveland Sports Park and the pay-for-entry pools at the Chilson Recreation Center and Winona Outdoor Pool.  

To reduce the cost of admission to the Chilson Recreation Center and Winona Outdoor Pool for residents who qualify for low-income assistance, the City of Loveland Parks and Recreation Department maintains a Financial Assistance Program.

Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir have beaches maintained by the Larimer County Department of Natural Resources and Boyd Lake State Park has a beach maintained by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Each of these have an admittance fee. There is also the Windsor Lake Swim Beach which is maintained by the Town of Windsor and has no admittance fee.  

The City budget can no longer support the on-going cost to keep the beach open to the public. We don’t have the money to cover operating expenses and with staffing reductions, we also don’t have staff to maintain it.

Operation of the beach is an on-going annual expense that includes the cost of lifeguards, operational staff, beach maintenance, trash removal, and more. 

The City of Loveland will continue maintaining the following swim areas during the summertime: The pools at the Chilson Recreation Center and Winona Outdoor Pool, and Splash Pads at Fairgrounds Park and Loveland Sports Park.

Boulders are a one-time cost that provides a visual and physical barrier, mitigating public safety concerns. We are aiming to keep people from climbing over the rock wall by trying to make the water’s edge look more like a shoreline and less like a beach.

For the cost of the boulder installation, equipment rental and rocks are estimated to cost around $20K. Existing park operations staff are providing the labor to keep rock installation at the lowest cost possible. This one-time cost is far less than the on-going annual cost of keeping the swim beach open.

The lease was a little over $2k. The Lake Loveland Recreation Club (HOA), offered to provide the lease free of charge, but that does not substantially offset the cost of operating the swim beach.

The property where the beach is located is owned by the City of Loveland. The sand is part of North Lake Park. The homeowner association (HOA) owns the surface rights of the water. The Greeley Loveland Irrigation Company shareholders own the rights to water in the lake.

Without lifeguards, the risk and cost associated with legal liability increases.

One-time money has to pay for one-time expenses. On-going annual operations are not going to be covered by one-time sponsorship. To remain open, the facility depends on annual budgetary resources.

The swim beach was identified as a reduction in the 2025 reduced services budget package presented and adopted during several public City Council meetings that began in April 2024.

On average, industry benchmarks report that it is common for a community the size of Loveland to generally have one public splash pad and one municipal pool.