Is it time for an aquatic center in Yakima? | Yakima Herald-Republic Online

SARA GETTYS
SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic The Moses Lake Family Aquatic Center includes several water slides, a diving area, a zero depth pool for babies and toddlers and a lap lane, providing something for a diverse range of swimmers on Wednesday, July 11, 2007.

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Can Yakima support a big aquatic center, and is there any hope voters will ever greenlight the project?

A much-awaited feasibility study won't be done until at least late June, and there's nothing formal on the table, but a number of scenarios are quietly emerging.

Among them: raising the city of Yakima's sales tax from 8.2 to 8.3 percent to build the facility and teaming up with the YMCA to run it.

And two potential locations have emerged: Kiwanis Park or the former Boise Cascade sawmill property, a vast swath of empty space that greets visitors arriving on Interstate 82

A big, regional year-round aquatic center could put a new face on Yakima, according to one city official, who quickly adds it will be up to the voters.

A preliminary analysis of the market indicates Yakima is a prime candidate for an aquatic center.

The question all along has been how to get something fancy off the drawing boards -- similar proposals in Selah and Grandview failed in recent years.

At least some answers are expected in a $75,000 study commissioned last summer as a way of gauging the market as well as political support for an aquatic center to replace the city's aging municipal pools. The city has closed three pools in recent years and says the two remaining survivors, Franklin and Lions, are a $300,000 drag on the budget every year.

The study, expected by late next month or early July, is being conducted by USKH Inc. of Lewiston, Idaho.

Among other factors, it will look at the possibility of increasing the sales tax. Raising the sales tax would happen by forming a public facilities district, not unlike the special taxing district that Yakima formed in 2001 with Selah and Union Gap to finance the expansion of the Yakima Convention Center.

The special district allows the three municipalities to hold back a fraction of sales tax from the state to pay for regional projects. The same would hold true for an aquatic center.

Such a district would be necessary because a bond is not thought to be feasible to build and help operate the facility, which could cost more than $30 million. In any case, only voters can approve it.

Kathy Coffey is one of two members of the City Council, along with Mayor Dave Edler, who have been bird-dogging the progress of the study, conceded there has been talk of a special taxing district.

However, she said she was reluctant to talk about it in more detail because the city's presumed municipal partners -- Selah and Union Gap -- haven't been brought in on the discussion yet. "It is what it is," she concluded.

Officials from both the city and the YMCA also were reluctant to talk about a public-private partnership, although they did not deny that discussions are under way.

Such a discussion would not be groundbreaking: The YMCA in Boise, Idaho, runs that city's aquatic center, which includes an Olympic-size pool along with the usual water slides and wading areas for toddlers and preschoolers that have made aquatic centers so popular in recent years.

One thing city officials said has become clear during the study process is that initial marketing efforts indicate the Yakima public wants a year-round indoor/outdoor facility.

But an operation like that, rather than a summer-only facility like the one in Moses Lake, is more likely to struggle financially as a result of slower business in the winter.

Councilman Neil McClure said he envisions a big, regional aquatic center as "another step toward a new Yakima."

Nevertheless, he emphasized that any serious proposal would have to be approved by taxpayers.

"It makes really good sense" as a way of raising the quality of life in Yakima, he said. "But nothing's going to happen without voter permission. The people are going to have the last say on it."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.