Bainbridge Island Park District zeroes in on fixes for aging Ray Williamson Pool

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – The Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park District will seek to get a bit more life out of the aging Ray Williamson Pool at the district’s aquatic facility off Madison Avenue.

Park district commissioners have mulled the idea of pursuing a new, replacement pool, but at the board’s Thursday meeting voted 4-1 to narrow the park district’s focus, for now, on repairs to the existing Ray Williamson Pool, where officials have identified a number of needed fixes and improvements.

Park district executive director Terry Lande told commissioners Thursday that Stemper Architecture Collaborative, the district’s consultant, had identified $2.8 million of priority items to be fixed at the pool.

“The critical thing for me is this has to happen, because … you’re not going to get a new pool in the next two to three years, so we need to do this work anyway,” he said ahead of the vote. “If it’s $3 million, I think that’s damn good money spent to make sure that that pool is available for the swimmers of the island, teaching lessons and all that kind of stuff. I think it’s critical that you get this passed tonight.”

More:Consultant: New Bainbridge pool could cost around $40 million

The pool originally opened as an outdoor facility in 1970, and a roof was later added in 1977. The park district in recent years has considered a new pool as the Ray Pool has shown signs of its age.

In a report prepared for the district last year, Stemper identified a long list of items that it said required “immediate” attention, noting that an assessment "revealed that the general infrastructure, building systems such as mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems are nearing the end of their useful life. Additionally, weatherization and time have enabled deterioration and failure at exterior building envelope systems such as the existing low slope roof, the storefront window and door system, and brick veneer. Water intrusion is apparent at various areas in the natatorium and auxiliary facilities, and a significant portion of the equipment and storage spaces which are open to the public are not ADA compliant." Stemper also noted that the pool deck was "heavily" eroding and found "general building maintenance" was requiring care beyond standard requirements.

Some of the needed items, according to the report: a roof replacement at the building's low slope roof area; a replacement heating and ventilation system; a replacement of main electrical panels; rehabilitation of the locker rooms; repair/replacement of general domestic water piping and plumbing; removal, replacement and/or cleaning of corroded equipment and accessory items; a conversion of the chemical treatment system to a saline/chlorine system; a conversion of the filtration system; and repairs of the concrete pool deck.

Lande told the Kitsap Sun that the work would replace and modernize nearly every system in the building. The district will now review its capital budget to see how much funding it can cobble together to fund the work, he said, noting that while some money has been budgeted for the work, other projects may have to be pushed back for the pool work to move ahead.

Lande estimated work would probably begin this spring or summer and said the district would work to schedule closure periods during times of lower usage.

Commissioner Jay Kinney pointed to the roughly $37-million estimate the district was given by a consultant for a new 33-meter pool in 2019. With soaring construction costs, he said the cost of the facility would probably top $50 million in 2026, noting that the district would have to get approval from 60% of voters in a bond vote.

“I just don’t think we’re going to be able to pass that bond,” he said, listing a number of recent public funding measures island voters have been asked to approve in recent years. “Eventually are we going to have to have a new pool? Eventually, yes. At some point, the Ray (Pool), the bones will get too tired and you won’t be able to renovate it. Hopefully by that time some of the bonds from the school district are coming off the books, and taxes will be going down. I can see a time in the future where the school bond drops, and we can put a bond in so people’s overall taxes don’t come up, and we can tell people that we got everything we possibly could out of the Ray Pool.”

“I know you guys don’t think a $50 million bond is a big issue, but it’s a pretty big number to stomach,” commissioner Dawn Janow said to members of the public at Thursday night’s meeting. “The park district subsidizes $867,000 per year, that’s the shortfall for the pool. If we enlarge the pool, that number’s going to increase even more. We do ask the taxpayers to subsidize the aquatic facility extraordinarily more than we do other facilities.”

Commissioner Tom Goodlin, the lone dissenting vote Thursday, said he shared concerns about the costs of a new pool but said he felt the park district could pursue a smaller facility. He said he objected to putting a large amount of money into the existing pool because doing so wouldn’t change its depth or width.

“It’s way undersized for this community,” he said. “It keeps a lot of people actually from using the pool that would otherwise do so.”

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Bainbridge Park District zeroes in on fixes for aging pool