Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Construction is well underway on the historic East Bathhouse at Jones Beach State Park, with a reopening planned for summer 2026.
Thanks to a $100 million investment by the state, the almost century-old building, which has been closed for almost two decades, will turn into a state-of-the-art swimming facility. State Parks Commissioner Pro Tempore Randy Simons said the updates will modernize the area for a safer swim location but will retain some of its original structure.
“We want to maintain that historic integrity, but we need to modernize it for the common day visitor,” he said.
The revitalization converts the bathhouse’s Olympic-size pool into a small pool for children and beginning swimmers, as well as a playground complete with splash pads — ground nozzles that spray water upward.
According to Simons, these upgrades will help new generations learn to swim with their families, without having to go into the ocean.
“We're going to have new concession spaces, we're going to have some park offices, a lifeguard station here,” Simons said. “We're going to have an experience where people sit out there with umbrellas, chairs and benches.”
The state Office of General Services is overseeing the project. It’s commissioner, Jeanette Moy, said the progress of the project is on track to fully open in time for June of next year.
“The demolition is substantially complete already,” she said. “We're just finishing off some of the asbestos removal. This project is moving very rapidly, and we're very excited about it.”
Throughout the summer and fall, work will focus on structural repairs, historical restoration, and roofing. Aurora Contractors Inc. of Ronkonkoma and Syosset-based LiRo-Hill are overseeing construction management.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the bathhouse upgrades at a news conference at the state park last year, detailing the redesign and reimagining of the long-abandoned facility. According to Hochul, the building is the last major piece of infrastructure at Jones Beach that hasn’t been updated since the pool complex was shut down in 2008 during the financial crisis.
According to Hochul, the facility improvements are part of the New York StateWide Investment in Municipal Swimming initiative, also known as NY SWIMS, which is aiming to provide swimming access across the state to underserved communities and areas that experience extreme summer heat. The initiative, according to the governor’s website, will reverse decades of disinvestment to ensure that public parks offer new, state-of-the-art swimming facilities that can serve thousands of daily visitors and provide safe spaces for children and families to swim.
“Drownings in the state of New York have reached record highs in recent years, claiming over 230 lives in 2021,” the governor said. “Children are particularly vulnerable. Drownings are the leading cause of death for 1- to 4-year-olds across the country, and the second-leading cause of death for 5- to 14-year-olds.”
Jones Beach, Hochul said, is the second most visited state park in New York, behind only Niagara Falls. In 2023, around 8.6 million people visited Jones Beach, she added, almost 50 percent of them from New York City.
George Gorman, Long Island regional director of New York State Parks, said the infrastructure improvements at the East Bathhouse are sorely needed. Since its closing, the facility deteriorated extensively, with bricks missing from the walls and collapsed ceilings, which he noted is expected of a building that has been abandoned for well over a decade.
The bathhouse is one of the original structures at Jones Beach, which opened in 1929. It was originally designed as a massive locker room—not a pool complex, Simons explained. Over the years, the space has evolved to meet modern needs, and the latest renovation will improve safety for swimmers.
“You can be in this area for the entire day and have everything,” Simons said. “All your expectations are met when you come to the beach, full service in a lot of ways, for food, fun and really family tradition, and that's what we wanted to kind of bring back to this area of Jones beach.”
