The Centralia Pool Committee is beginning to look away from construction of a new pool in Fairview Park due to the cost and no money to pay for it.
Committee members began expressing concern about proceeding with a new pool when learning a pool with several amenities had an estimated cost of $11-mllion. A barebones pool with just a diving board and a small slide would have a cost of around $3-million.
Josh Layer of Burbach Aquatics who is consulting the group was then asked about spray pads. He’ll be bringing back more information at the group’s July 11th meeting.
“I’m going to have different options for the committee to look at in different sizes and surfaces and also planning for potential buildings and stuff. So total building cost.”
Layer says a base system would cost around $350,000 before any buildings. Committee members felt restrooms were a necessity if they were in the current bath house or a new building. He’ll also bring back more information on a small barebones pool.
Centralia Economic Development Director Derek Sherman addressed the funding options available.
“Options are to raise taxes and there are 2 ways to do that. You can do property tax or sales tax revenue to raise it. Either way you are going to have to bond the project and it’s going to have to be bonded against the revenue you have. The other things to support that is fundraising, they’ve been very successful in that in the past…or grants. The issue with grants are there aren’t many available in the state of Illinois. The most you can get is $400,000 for a pool.”
Sherman warned all area pools are running in the red, so a revenue stream was questionable.
Committee member Stephanie Perez says unfortunately she didn’t think a new pool was financially feasibly in current times, even the barebones option.
“Don’t think with us having just a plain jane pool that we are going to get any revenue there at all. We are going to be shutting down early because we don’t have enough people or we can’t even staff.”
Councilwoman Barri Allen, who is the city’s council’s representative on the committee, says the city has a lot of bigger fish to fry right now.
“I was all for the pool at the beginning. I was saying let’s get it, we need it for the kids. But now I’m like, it’s so expensive. And we have to staff it, you know we aren’t going to have any staff.”
The staffing questions being raised as the Centralia Recreation Complex has been unable to find life guards to fully staff its operations.
The pool committee is charged with presenting a recommendation to the city council on how to proceed with a new pool.
