Study Finds City Needs Improved Swimming Facilities

Imagine it’s 20 degrees outside and the kids are asking to go for a swim.

Snow and ice are spread over the streets like butter on bread. So you go ahead, bundle them up and take them to the nearest swimming hole.

Far-fetched? Maybe for now. But the Spokane Park Board is examining a study that calls for enclosing the Liberty pool in the East Central neighborhood.

The study also looks at whether Spokane residents would be willing to pay for a $10 million to $14 million aquatic center which would be six times larger than the Shadle pool.

“It’s all a big if,” said Hal McGlathery, a recreation service division manager with the parks department. “It’s merely a vision.”

According to a Portland-based consultant hired by the Park Board, Spokane’s current pool system doesn’t meet the needs of the city.

“It’s our responsibility to look at that and recognize that we might need better aquatic facilities in Spokane,” McGlathery said.

In February, the Park Board appointed an Aquatics Advisory Committee made up of citizens, Park Board members and staff from the parks and recreation department to examine current facilities and make recommendations on how to improve them, he said.

One of the suggestions was to put a permanent cover on the Hillyard pool in North Spokane as well as develop a new indoor pool at an undisclosed site on the South Hill.

Another option included building a multimillion dollar facility while covering the Hillyard pool and the Liberty pool for yearround use.

The large facility would be built at a central location in Spokane that could attract people from throughout the Inland Northwest.

It would be a large family swim center with spas, slides, pools for training, competition and diving, and a wave-pool tank.

Admission sales would be used to pay for long-term building costs.

The big question is how to pay for it in the short term, McGlathery said.

“Wherever in the country they’re built, there’s no doubt the community has had to work hard to pay for it,” he said.

At the same time, however, McGlathery said operating pools in Spokane during the summer months is not cheap. It costs $70,000 a year to operate a pool during the summer.

“A big aquatic facility is less of a drain than one summer pool, and that’s encouraging, but still, the community would have to decide whether that’s important enough to pay for.”

As for the neighborhood pools, the committee strongly recommended that fees not be charged if they are covered.

“As far as we can tell, the only other city similar in size to Spokane that doesn’t charge for swimming is Austin, Texas,” McGlathery said.

“The committee viewed free swimming as kind of a sacred cow for Spokane,” he said.

Money could be raised through the private sector or by asking taxpayers if they would consider picking up the costs for new and improved facilities, McGlathery said.

Another option would be to ask the city for more money from the general fund, which the parks department receives at least 8 percent of every year, McGlathery said.

It’s all a study, he said. Some, all or none of the options could materialize.

, DataTimes