INDIANAPOLIS -- Plans to bulldoze an east side Indianapolis pool and replace it with a spray park have angered some neighbors.

The Wes Montgomery Park pool was closed for repairs in 2008 and never reopened. City officials have now proposed turning the once-active swimming site into a spray park, at a cost of $500,000, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

But some residents said the kid-friendly park won't appeal to older teens, who once frequented the neighborhood pool, the only such facility within a 5-mile radius.

"It just doesn't meet the needs of all ages. The older kids that we are trying to help won't participate in the spray pool," Mark Webster with the United Northeast Development Corporation said Friday at an Indy Parks meeting.

"They could have talked to the neighborhood before they made this decision, and they opted not to do that," said Sonja Marion with the Coalition of Northeast Neighborhoods. "I don't think it is fair."

Parks Director Stuart Lowry said the department is simply trying to stretch its funding as far as possible in an ongoing effort to rehab 20 city pools in need of major repairs.

"It's a tough fiscal cycle right now. It's tough to raise money to do everything we'd like to do as a park system," he said. "We have $60 million in deferred maintenance we are working with across the system. We are trying to do our due diligence with taxpayer dollars."

When approached about the issue at a meeting later on Friday, Mayor Greg Ballard backed Lowry and said he couldn't support a new pool at Wes Montgomery Park.

"We're still willing to give them a spray park out of half a million dollars, the most we are spending for any aquatic facility, other than Bethel (Park Pool), which has Lilly Endowment money," he said. "We think that is a better use of our resources. There is only so much money to go around."

A group of neighborhood kids plan to hold a news conference on Monday to tell the mayor how much they want a new pool.