$33M aquatic center would be ‘shining star’ for Tri-Cities. Here’s the timeline

Pasco council members said they’re excited about the possibility of building an aquatic center within their city limits.

“I think it will be a shining star for what the Tri-Cities needs as a whole, but really what Pasco’s been asking for,” Councilman Craig Maloney said Monday. “I mean, this is the No. 1 thing I hear from any average person in Pasco is, ‘Why can’t we have more things for kids to do?’”

Maloney, the council representative on the Pasco Public Facilities District board, told council members Monday it has taken a lot of hours, energy and patience to reach this point.

He said he will continue to be “emphatically supportive of giving voters the opportunity to vote on this.”

When Tri-Cities voters were asked in 2013 to support an aquatic center, two out of the three cities rejected the local sales tax.

A majority of Pasco residents favored building a water park with slides and other fun features in the Tri-Cities.

Pasco officials have never given up on that effort and — after years of research, cost analysis and tweaking of the blueprints — are ready to try again.

This time, the question would be posed to just residents of Pasco, which officials say is one of the fastest growing cities in the state with the youngest population.

The Pasco Public Facilities District needs approval from the Pasco City Council to get the measure on the Franklin County election ballot this February.

So on Monday, board Chairman Mark Morrissette and Zach Ratkai, the city’s administrative and community services director, presented the project to the city and answered questions.

The presentation, given during the council’s workshop meeting, can be viewed on the city’s YouTube channel.

The Public Facilities District board is looking at taking on a $40 million, 25-year bond, which would cover the $33 million price tag for a year-round aquatic center.

The debt would require yearly payments of $2.8 million.

To cover those costs, the district wants to ask voters to raise the local sales tax by two-tenths of a percent.

If approved with a vote of 50 percent or higher, the local sales tax would be implemented immediately.

That means, for example, a customer will be taxed 2 cents on a $10 purchase, 20 cents on a $100 purchase, $2 on $1,000 or $200 on $100,000.

As proposed right now, the facility would be built on 4.61 acres in two phases — the first at nearly 47,000 square feet and the second just over 13,000 square feet.

A diagram of the project shows one potential location could be south of Interstate 182 along Chapel Hill and Broadmoor boulevards.

The center in the first phase would include an indoor leisure pool, outdoor activity pool, party room, outdoor concessions and locker rooms.

It could be ready to operate in 2024, with 16 total full- and part-time workers.

The second phase is projected to be 12 to 15 years out with the cash balance from the bond. That phase would involve an indoor, eight-lane competition pool.

Maloney said the competition pool is needed for this region to enhance sports tourism.

Councilman Pete Serrano agreed, saying, “The project is great, but Phase 2 is very critical to the success of it.”

He questioned if there might be a way to shorten the time between the two phases.

The regional effort in 2013 was designed to build a $35 million center on Sandifur Parkway in Pasco. But voters overall rejected a sales tax request from the Tri-Cities Regional Public Facilities District.

In 2019, Gov. Jay Inslee signed Pasco’s “vote to float” legislation amending state law to add aquatic centers to the public amenities that can be built by public facilities districts.

That change means the city of Pasco can move forward on its own and does not need to rely on Kennewick and Richland to help build a facility.

The Pasco Public Facilities District plans to finalize a resolution during its November meeting, and present that to the city council for approval in early December.

Then, if a majority of council members give the green light, the aquatic center measure will go before the voters in February.

This story was originally published October 26, 2021 at 1:15 PM.