‘A beautiful site’

Progress made on Russellville Aquatic Center

Jerry Short, job-site supervisor, from left, Stanley Hunt, project manager, and Mayor Randy Horton stand at the site of the $6.6 million Russellville Aquatic Center under construction on Phoenix Avenue. The project has been talked about for three years, Horton said. It will include a competition/recreation pool and a therapy pool, “inflatable pool amenities” and a splash pad for children, as well as meeting/party rooms. The facility is scheduled to be completed in early summer 2017, Horton said.
Jerry Short, job-site supervisor, from left, Stanley Hunt, project manager, and Mayor Randy Horton stand at the site of the $6.6 million Russellville Aquatic Center under construction on Phoenix Avenue. The project has been talked about for three years, Horton said. It will include a competition/recreation pool and a therapy pool, “inflatable pool amenities” and a splash pad for children, as well as meeting/party rooms. The facility is scheduled to be completed in early summer 2017, Horton said.

Although the project made some waves, a year from now, the $6.6 million Russellville Aquatic Center should be going swimmingly, city officials said.

It looked more like a “mud pit” during last week’s rain, Mayor Randy Horton said, but construction is underway on North Phoenix Avenue. The 24,800-square-foot facility will include a therapy/exercise pool, an eight-lane competition pool, a splash pad for kids and meeting/party rooms.

The center will be paid for with a 1-cent sales tax, which residents voted in 2013 to renew. The proceeds previously went to fund streets and drainage, as well as “big projects,” Horton said.

A few months before the city was going to start promoting the sales-tax renewal, Arkansas Tech University closed its indoor pool, leaving residents and competitive swim teams without a facility to use.

“It’s kind of the thing right now for cities to build municipal indoor pools,” Horton said. “We hurried and included it in the sales-tax election, and it passed.”

He added that the sales-tax renewal was approved by 60 percent of the voters.

The details were worked out later, which is the opposite of how a major construction project normally would be handled, Horton said.

“We didn’t have that luxury,” he said.

One of the debates among members of the Russellville City Council was where to build the aquatic center. Former Mayor Bill Eaton, a member of the City Council, and Mac Hollis, director of Parks and Recreation, preferred Vick Field on East Parkway.

Hollis said in an earlier interview that the North Phoenix Avenue location was his second choice.

Horton said the concern about the East Parkway site was lack of parking, except across the busy street. The vision was of a “mom and a little chain of kids trying to get across that street,” Horton said.

“You couldn’t get around that the public just did not support it with that traffic issue in mind,” Horton said.

He said he and others looked at 30 or more potential sites.

“We already owned this property on North Phoenix Avenue; it’s adjacent to Arkansas Tech property,” Horton said. “Tech wants this facility for their use, too. We will start building a trail system that will go from the west part of campus right by [the aquatic center],” Horton said.

Hollis said work on a paved trail will start as soon as the rain clears.

“It’s going to work out well there. It’s easily accessible to Arkansas Tech where it is. … Also, you’re going to be able to see it from all the hotels on Highway 7 there on the interstate,” Hollis said. It’s about two city blocks from Russellville Junior High and “relatively close” to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, he said.

“We hope Tech will put together a swim team,” Hollis said. He said the Russellville Sharks, a city swim team, and the Russellville High School Cyclones swim team will practice at the aquatic center. The Cyclones practiced at the Arkansas Tech pool until it closed and now utilize a pool in Clarksville, the mayor said.

Eaton said he is satisfied with the location for the aquatic center and with its progress.

“The contractor is very pleased with the progress that is being made, and everything is on schedule. They’ve got the two ends of the facility up; the competition pool has been poured,” Eaton said.

“That [facility] was dragged out much further than it should have been — the issues over where to put it and different opinions and this and that,” Eaton said. “Once we got that resolved, everything else has come about as it should. It’s a good thing; it really is.”

Horton said the 22-acre site is picturesque.

“It sits on a little bit of a rise; you look out on pastures and woodland areas. One side [of the aquatic center] is going to be almost entirely glass and looks out on pasture. Coming around the curve on North Phoenix, I picture it with the lights on at night. I think it will be a really nice aesthetic view for the city of Russellville,” Horton said.

The outside will be block, metal and glass, Horton said. Inside, the structure will have stained laminated-wood arches “like you’d see in a church,” he said. “It’s going to make it

gorgeous.”

The City Council also went through several months of debate about whether to use a traditional bid method for the project or a construction-management method, which is being used.

Van Horn Construction Co. of Russellville is the construction manager.

Although Horton said the plan was to have $1.5 million to use for operation costs “for the first few years,” Hollis said the City Council authorized spending more on the facility.

Hollis said the final construction cost is estimated at $6.585 million; $385,000 is left for maintenance and operation.

“We’re going to have to come up with some creative ways to fund it,” he said.

Horton said a committee worked countless hours on what to include in the facility, which was designed by ETC Engineers & Architects Inc. of Little Rock.

“By the time we get finished designing it and building it, it’s going to be a nice facility, but that comes at a cost — construction and outfitting, $6.6 million,” Horton said. “We got enough to get it open and get it started, and then we have several options.”

The fee structure for use of the aquatic center has not been set, Horton said, but users will pay a fee. A room that can be divided into two party or meeting rooms will be available for rent, Horton said. In his research of similar facilities, Horton said, he was told the party rooms stay booked.

“That’s a huge percentage of your revenues; it helps you pay for your pool,” he said.

The city originally pitched a proposal for an indoor-outdoor facility, but “there was not enough support for that project to go with that price tag,” which he said was about $10 million. The outdoor portion was dropped.

The facility will have a 1,500-square-foot therapy pool, which has a higher temperature than the competition pool, with an Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant ramp so people in wheelchairs can access the therapy pool, Horton said.

The center’s 25-yard competition pool can be used for recreational swimming, and a splash-pad area will be available for children.

“We haven’t bought anything yet. … We’re still deciding what we want,” Horton said.

The facility was designed with an 18-inch-deep children’s pool, “but with observation, we found it’s just not that popular with the kids. They get bored. They prefer things you can run through,” he said.

Prepackaged items will be sold at a concession stand, and a few tables and chairs will be placed in that area.

“It’s a beautiful site, and the view outside is fantastic; it’s calm. It’s one of those places — it’s going to lend itself to informal meetings,” Horton said.

“After all this angst and all this money we’re spending, I want to see it used a lot. We’re going to try to be inclusive.”

The facility is scheduled to open in July 2017.

“Once we get it built, hopefully, everybody will like what we did,” Horton said.

About four years from when the center opens, the sales tax will be up for renewal again, Horton said.

“That gives us the right amount of time to see what best fits, what the users want,” Horton said. “Then we’d have a plan about how to move ahead with it.”

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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