Lighting Up Ridley Park Swim Club

In June of 2023, City Electric Supply (CES) customer John Cook attended a branch Counter Day event at CES Folsom to ask about specific products for a local project. Cook, the owner of John’s Electrical Service, was replacing lights at a nearby private swimming facility, Ridley Park Swim Club, and needed help identifying the best solution.

With leading vendors already in-store for the event, CES Folsom Operations Manager Rico Noverati was well supported to guide Cook. Once those connections were made, it was almost full speed ahead.

A prosperous pool

Ridley Park Swim Club has been a part of the community for decades, where members compete on swimming and diving teams, host parties, and enjoy summer days with family and friends.

“We have around 400 family memberships, so there are several hundred people at the club on any given weekend — especially from early summer through the Fourth of July,” noted Vice President of Ridley Park Swim Club Nick Crocetto. 

Cook’s family being members brings a more personal touch to the project.

“I’ve been a member of Ridley Park Swim Club with my son for a little over 12 years,” said Cook.

Counter Day connections

As a CES customer of four years, Cook was familiar with counter days as a great opportunity to network with vendors. When he became involved with replacing decades-old lights at Ridley Park Swim Club, he decided to attend an event in search of a manufacturer who could help evaluate what was needed.

“I’ve known John for years, and I connected him with a few vendors I thought could help him out,” said Noverati. 

That’s when another industry connection came into play.

“Rico and I have worked together for a while; I was at the branch’s counter day event promoting Keystone products when a contractor came in talking about a pool project. He wanted us to come and check out the lights,” said Jared Gross, Territory Manager of Keystone Technologies. 

Upon arriving at the facility, Cook and Gross completed a walkthrough of the L-shaped 150-yard-long and 25-meter-wide pool.

“Jared looked at everything to see what kind of lights we needed and where they would be installed,” said Cook.

Since the summer months brought Ridley Park Swim Club a lot of traffic, installations were put on hold until August to minimize disruption to daily operations.

Completing the project

“We decided to go with 100-watt flood fixtures with built-in color selectable photocells and 60-watt dusk-till-dawn fixtures for the installation,” explained Gross.

“Keystone is located around 45 minutes from us. When we order stuff from them, it’s usually in our warehouse in a short amount of time,” said Noverati.

CES Folsom delivered the lights from Keystone to Ridley Park Swim Club. With all the materials, expertise, and labor at the ready, the project officially began.

Though as customary with many retrofitting projects, Cook faced difficulties when replacing old technology with new material.

“The facility was originally built in 1959,” said Crocetto. “Some of the lights had been there since the club’s inception, and any replacements were done over 30 years ago.”

“The existing lights were old bullhorn fluorescent lights. Replacing these old fixtures required careful planning as many were rusted, so we had to carefully cut each pole for the new fixtures and make sure they were cut at the same height with the assistance of a lift machine due to them being at different ground levels, for a clean final look,” explained Cook.

Once the project got started, it also expanded to the parking lot.

“We replaced the old metal halide lights with new LED fixtures. Including the ones in the parking lot, we did seven of those replacements,” said Cook.

Despite the challenges, the project took only a week to complete.

Thanks all around

The group effort and collaboration that made this project so successful inspired an abundance of gratitude from everyone involved.

“I’m appreciative of CES and Keystone for helping me on this project. Any questions I had were quickly answered,” said Cook.

“We really appreciate Ridley Park Swim Club for choosing Keystone for their project, and we’d also like to thank CES for their support. The upgraded lighting has made a really big impact, and they look great,” said Gross.

“We always appreciate John and his business, and we look forward to continuing to work with him and Ridley Park Swim Club in the future. Jared’s a great guy, and the Keystone lights were perfect for the job,” said Noverati.

“We’d like to thank John very much for taking the time to figure out what we needed and bringing in people from CES and Keystone to help come up with ideas for the lighting source, design, and outputs,” said Crocetto.

Ridley Park Swim Club is so pleased with the updates that they want to continue working with all parties on other areas of the facility.

“There’s lighting that needs to be replaced on the inside of the pool and around the basketball court area,” said Crocetto. “I hope to do this again with them this summer!”