County May Help Enlarge Ymca Aquatics Center

FROM VALLEY VOICE page V5 (Saturday, March 22, 1997): Clarification Wyn Birkenthal, county Parks and Recreation manager, told county commissioners the YMCA’s planned Valley aquatics center will not be located in an area that would allow it to serve as an adequate replacement for Valley Mission pool. His dispute is with the proposed site of the aquatics center and not the YMCA. A story in Thursday’s voice implied otherwise.

Spokane County commissioners on Tuesday agreed to study a proposal to form a partnership with the YMCA that would allow the non-profit organization to expand the aquatics center it plans to build at Mirabeau Point.

Usage projections show the 20,000-square-foot aquatics center the YMCA plans to open in the spring of 1999 will quickly reach capacity. That would force the YMCA to turn away members and non-members alike, said Steve Jurich, the non-profit’s Valley director.

Adding county funds to the project would significantly increase the size of the aquatics center and better serve the Valley’s 100,000 people, said Bob Jayne, chairman of the YMCA project’s design committee.

How much the partnership would cost the county and the impact that money would have on the aquatics center were not discussed.

Commissioners asked the YMCA to present specific estimates before they make a decision.

Commissioners will weigh the YMCA’s proposal against the benefits of building a neighborhood pool to replace the decaying pool at Valley Mission Park.

“We believe there’s a lot of potential there,” said Rich Wallis, YMCA of the Inland Northwest executive director.

The aquatics center will make up half of the recreational facility the YMCA plans to build as part of the Mirabeau Point multi-use community center complex proposed on the former Walk in the Wild zoo site.

Cost of the YMCA aquatics center, which will include three separate indoor pools, is estimated at $2.3 million. The pools would range from a shallow, 2,200-square foot children’s pool to a 25-yard, competition-type pool with diving board and water slide. The YMCA pools would be open year-round to members and to non-members for a daily fee.

“With the current plan we have we’re going to be full shortly after we open,” Jurich said.

By helping pay for a bigger aquatics center, the county could help solve both the YMCA’s capacity problem and the Valley’s need for a new pool, Wallis said.

A similar partnership has worked well in Boise, Jurich said.

Wyn Birkenthal, county Parks and Recreation Department manager, told commissioners the county’s money would be better spent replacing the Valley Mission pool with another $1.3 million outdoor neighborhood pool.

“We have to serve the needs of the county citizens and I think Wyn (Birkenthal) feels like the YMCA isn’t going to do that,” Commissioner John Roskelley said.

Roskelley is concerned that the county has already pledged $1.7 million to build a road and part of a new senior center at Mirabeau Point.

“As much as we’d like to be involved in a community-county plan I don’t think at this time we can,” Roskelley said.

Commissioner Kate McCaslin argued the board did not have enough information to simply dismiss the YMCA’s proposal. It’s possible contributing $1 million to the YMCA project may double the size of the aquatics center, save the taxpayers $300,000 and rid the county of the burden of future maintenance costs, she said.

“I want to make sure the county is not more worried about ownership of our own stuff than with forming community-county partnerships, which is the direction I think we should go,” McCaslin said.

Commissioner Phil Harris said the partnership was worth considering.

“Everybody in the nation is getting out of the neighborhood pool business,” Harris said. “If I were a kid, (Mirabeau Point) is where I’d go.”

, DataTimes