Consultant presents ideas for city pools
A small but vocal crowd greeted three proposals to improve Spokane Valley pools at a meeting Tuesday night, and some suggested that the city needs a heated pool for physical therapy and exercise programs.
The presentation was given by a consultant hired to evaluate the city’s options for spending $1.6 million Spokane County raised before Valley incorporation to build a new pool to replace the one at Valley Mission Park.
The first option presented was to spend that money to expand deck space at all three Valley pools and add shallow water features like a “lazy river” for swimmers on inner tubes. More deck space would increase maximum occupancy, which has been an issue in the past.
A second option would be to spend $2.7 million to install a shallow pool at Valley Mission Park that would decrease in depth from zero to about 4 feet, much like a beach.
Zero-depth pools, as they are called, “will generate probably two to three times as much usage as traditional lap pools,” architect Bob Bignold told the audience of about a half-dozen people. That interest can mean the difference between a pool that sustains itself financially and a pool that becomes a drain on city coffers, he said.
The third option would be to build a 25-meter or 50-meter indoor pool in a building that also houses a zero-depth pool, lazy river, water slide and other features. Its price tag would be about $9 million for 25-meter pool or $11 million for the 50-meter option.
“We can afford the outdoor renovations for the pools or it can be a nest egg for this,” Parks and Recreation Director Mike Jackson said of the third option, which might be built in a city center envisioned by the city’s developing comprehensive plan.
“I don’t think there is any sense in thinking about outdoor pools, given the climate,” said Doris Brown, 70. She said she uses pools only for warm water aerobics. Most of the others in attendance wanted some sort of warm water pool also.
Patty Blakesley, 50, said warm water pools are the only way people with certain disabilities can exercise.
One of the attendees asked if the city could find a way to build an Olympic-size 50-meter pool that would bring sporting events to the region and break even like a pool in Boise.
The Boise pool is an exception, Bignold said, because competition pools usually cost more to operate than they bring in.
The Spokane Valley City Council will review the pool plans when they are complete in a month or so, Jackson said.
In the meantime, Bignold said he would look into adding the cost of a small heated pool on its own or with one of the other pools to information presented to the council.