Highlands Preps For Summer - Metzger Park Gets Nature Upgrade - Business Briefs
Highlands Park Aquatic Center prepares for summer with cleanup work and 15% season pass sale
Westerville’s Highlands Park Aquatic Center is beginning to look toward summer, even while its pools are still empty.
City crews have been working through the annual pre-season cleanup at the outdoor aquatic center, clearing debris, washing pool surfaces, and preparing the facility’s slides, lazy river, toddler areas, and swimming pools before the start of the 2026 season. The work is part of the routine preparation needed before the pools can be filled, inspected, and opened to the public.
Highlands Park Aquatic Center, commonly known as HPAC, is scheduled to open for the season on Saturday, May 23. The facility is located at 245 S. Spring Road in Westerville.
This year’s opening comes with a promotion tied to the pool’s anniversary. The Westerville Parks and Recreation Department is offering a 15% discount on Highlands Park Aquatic Center season passes from Friday, May 1, through Friday, May 15, in honor of the facility’s 15th anniversary.
Season passes may be purchased or renewed online at westerville.org/registration or in person at the Westerville Community Center.
HPAC is one of Westerville’s major summer recreation destinations. The city describes the aquatic center as a natural, outdoor-feeling setting for family recreation, with enough attractions to keep visitors busy for an afternoon or for an entire summer.
The facility includes a speed and body slide tower, a zero-entry toddler pool with a simulated-rock slide, a spray playground, a lazy river, and an eight-lane, 25-meter pool with a diving well. The mix of features makes the pool suitable for young children, families, lap swimmers, and visitors seeking a full-day summer outing.
The work now underway is the less glamorous side of opening an outdoor pool, but it is essential. Photos from the facility show workers moving through the empty pool basins, dragging out winter debris, rinsing surfaces, and cleaning the edges of the lazy river and slide areas. Shade structures, ladders, railings, slides, and pool decks are already in place, while the basins remain dry during the maintenance period.
Once the cleanup and preparation work is complete, the pools will be readied for water, safety checks, and the start of the public season.
For 2026, HPAC season pass rates are:
Single pass, ages 3-64: $95 for residents, $190 for non-residents
Single senior pass, ages 65 and older: $60 for residents, $120 for non-residents
Family of two: $150 for residents, $300 for non-residents
Family of three: $185 for residents, $370 for non-residents
Family of four: $215 for residents, $430 for non-residents
Family of five: $230 for residents, $460 for non-residents
Additional family members: $15 each for residents, $30 each for non-residents
Family guest pass: $90 for residents, $180 for non-residents
Daily admission for 2026 is listed at $10 for residents and $20 for non-residents.
The city notes that individual ages for single passes are calculated based on the last day of the season. For family passes, each person listed on the pass must prove they live in the same household before the pass can be purchased. Additional residency and registration information is available through the city’s registration page.
The 15% discount period may be especially useful for families planning to visit HPAC multiple times during the summer. A family of four, for example, would pay the posted resident rate of $215 before any applicable sale discount, while non-resident pricing for the same pass is $430 before the sale.
As opening day approaches, the empty pools and cleanup hoses will soon give way to filled basins, lifeguards, swimmers, and the familiar sounds of summer at Highlands. For now, the work continues behind the scenes so the facility can be ready when Westerville families return on May 23.
Volunteers plant 450 native trees and shrubs at Metzger Park
Volunteers spent Saturday morning planting hundreds of native trees and shrubs at Metzger Park, adding new growth to one of Westerville’s public green spaces.
The native tree planting took place on April 25 from 10 a.m. to noon. About 17 volunteers joined in, most from Vertiv, a local Westerville business. By the end of the event, they had planted about 450 native trees and understory shrubs in the park’s natural areas.
Among the trees planted was the Eastern red cedar, a species native to Ohio. Volunteers used shovels and planting tools to dig holes in the wooded area, placing young trees and shrubs among the existing plants, mulch, and spring growth.
The goal of the planting was to make the park’s natural landscape stronger over time. Native trees and shrubs fit local conditions and support birds, pollinators, and other wildlife. Understory shrubs, which grow under taller trees, also help create a more layered and resilient habitat.
Although the planting only took a morning, the results will appear over the coming years. As the new trees and shrubs take root and grow, they will provide shade, habitat, and structure for the park in the future.
The event also connected a local business to the project, as Vertiv volunteers provided much of the help. Their efforts helped small seedlings and shrubs begin the next stage of growth at Metzger Park.
Westerville Business News
Vertiv acquires Strategic Thermal Labs
Vertiv Holdings Co. has acquired Strategic Thermal Labs LLC, adding liquid-cooling engineering expertise as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing continue to drive denser and hotter data center systems.
The Westerville-based company announced the acquisition on April 27, saying STL specializes in cold-plate design, server-side liquid cooling, and high-density thermal validation. Vertiv said the acquisition strengthens its ability to simulate real high-density compute conditions and improve how cooling systems interact with power systems, controls, serviceability, and long-term reliability.
The deal is part of Vertiv’s broader strategy to expand its power, cooling, controls, and lifecycle services for data centers and other critical digital infrastructure. The company said the STL acquisition will support customers through design, integration, commissioning, and operations while preserving Vertiv’s open, server- and silicon-agnostic approach.
Vertiv said those capabilities are becoming increasingly important as AI and high-performance computing push chip-level heat and power densities higher, requiring more advanced cooling systems closer to the servers themselves.
DHL expands data center logistics capacity
DHL Group plans to add 10 dedicated warehouse sites and more than 7 million square feet of North American logistics capacity to support the growth of hyperscale data centers.
The facilities are expected to go live in 2026 and will serve companies building the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence and cloud computing. DHL said the expansion will include high-security warehousing, white-glove handling, rack configuration services, and specialized warehouse-to-site transportation for high-value IT hardware.
The company said the added capacity is intended to help large data center projects stay on schedule as demand for AI-related infrastructure grows. DHL also said the North American expansion is the first step in a broader data center logistics program, with additional regions scheduled for future capacity upgrades.
DHL cited a survey showing many data center decision-makers prefer a single end-to-end logistics partner, while fewer believe they currently have one. The company said its program is designed to connect global supply flows with local delivery, including the movement of GPUs, power modules, and oversized components used in large data center projects.
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