Kansas City suburb will lose only water park over poor maintenance. What went wrong?
This summer, Independence will lose its only public outdoor pool because of high operating and repair costs, leaving residents wondering how Adventure Oasis Water park fell into disrepair.
The closure means the city of 120,000 has only one public pool, the indoor Henley Aquatic Center, inside of Bridger Middle School.
Adventure Oasis opened in 2005 and is located at the intersection of Routes 291 and 78 in Independence.
In 2024, the complex had 45,660 visits from Memorial Day weekend through mid-August, and held programs like swimming lessons and water exercise classes. It was operated by a third-party contractor for all 20 years.
Why is Adventure Oasis closing?
Independence city officials closed the pool because of deferred maintenance and loss of profitability, Parks Director Morris Heide said in an October city council meeting. The city did not respond to a March request for comment.
On Facebook, the city government shared images of cracks in the walls of the lazy river, rust in the mechanical room and chipping concrete on a pedestrian bridge. It would have cost approximately $1 million to fix safety issues and get Adventure Oasis ready to open in spring 2025, according to Heide.
Officials say it would cost taxpayers an additional $7.4 million to make the water park competitive by adding new attractions. No new water features have been added in the 20 years, even though the master plan called for constructing a new attraction every 5-10 years.
Heide said that even when Adventure Oasis opened, it didn’t make a profit. But post-2020, he said the gap widened as costs increased and revenue decreased.
From July 2022 through June 2023, the facility lost a total of $680,000, which breaks down to a loss of $56,000 for every week it was open.
Heide said it became more expensive to operate the facility, with Missouri minimum wage increases and the rising cost of supplies like pool chemicals and umbrellas.
The water park was only open to Independence residents in 2022 and 2023, contributing to a drop in attendance. Heide explained that with fewer pools open after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the demand for Adventure Oasis was more than they could handle, leading the city to restrict the water park to only residents post-2020.
“We saw a big surge in participation, was really more capacity than we could handle, so that was the approach to handle that interest in the water park,” Heide said.
The city did not share if the pool would be demolished, nor what is planned for the site.
‘Sad’ swimmers
Hundreds of Adventure Oasis lovers commented on the closing announcement on Facebook, sharing anger, sadness and memories of the summer hot spot. One of them was Penny Pace.
The Independence resident said she “was close to tears” when she learned Adventure Oasis was closing. Walking is painful for 70-year-old, so during the summer, she and her two friends walked in the pool’s lazy river up to five times a week.
“We know how many laps it takes to do 2 miles,” she said.
For the past three years, Pace and her friends have sometimes had to move to the regular pool because the lazy river’s water levels were too low.
Pace said that if the deferred maintenance had been dealt with over time, “I don’t think they would be in this situation, because those kind of things did not happen overnight.”
On the April ballot, Independence lawmakers will ask residents to approve a total of $197 million in GO bonds. The bond includes funds for a new animal shelter and improvements to the Independence Athletic Complex. The $8.4 million it would take to make Adventure Oasis competitive is nowhere to be seen.
A previous version of the bond asked for money to build a new recreation center, which would have included an indoor pool, but it did not make it into the final proposal.
With Adventure Oasis closed, Pace said this summer she’ll have to drive farther and spend more money to get a nonresident pass at a Lee’s Summit or Blue Springs pool.
But now, she is mourning the loss of her summer haunt.
“It really does make a whole lot of us very sad and unhappy, because this was just something that brought joy to us,” Pace said.
This story was originally published March 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story included outdated information about what a bond issue soon facing Independence voters would include. It has been updated with the latest details on that bond issue.
