Townsell to tour aquatic facilities

The pool reflects the building at the Briarwood Swim Club, which is for sale in Conway. Although Mayor Tab Townsell said he and Parks and Recreation Director Steve Ibbotson have discussed the possibility of using the Tyler Street site to build a city aquatic/community center, both men said it isn’t likely. Ibbotson said the facility would have to be gutted, and Townsell said there isn’t enough parking.
The pool reflects the building at the Briarwood Swim Club, which is for sale in Conway. Although Mayor Tab Townsell said he and Parks and Recreation Director Steve Ibbotson have discussed the possibility of using the Tyler Street site to build a city aquatic/community center, both men said it isn’t likely. Ibbotson said the facility would have to be gutted, and Townsell said there isn’t enough parking.

CONWAY — Mayor Tab Townsell hasn’t given up on the idea of a city aquatic/community center and plans to take a field trip this month to Bentonville to see its new facility.

“Then we’ll go to Edmond, Oklahoma, to see a similar, bigger one over there,” Townsell said. “We’re going to go kick a few tires. That’s what we’re going to do — ask a few questions.”

The city commissioned a feasibility study on an aquatic/community center after the Conway City Council sunk Townsell’s idea to buy the former Spirit Homes facility to create a center. Townsell said he expects the $27,000 study, which two Missouri firms conducted, to be back “in a few months.”

Conway residents will be asked to fill out an online survey about what they want to see in the facility, said Steve Ibbotson, director of Conway Parks and Recreation.

He said the survey will be on the city’s website, www.cityofconway.org, as soon as this week, and on the parks and recreation website, www.conwayparks.com.

In 2009, the City Council, with most of the same members as today, approved buying Spirit Homes on 17 acres in west Conway for a community center with pools, but the deal fell through.

Last year, the council entered into a purchase agreement for the $3.5 million building on Dave Ward Drive and provided $100,000 in earnest money. Nabholz Construction Services looked at the building and told the council it would cost more than $34 million to convert the Spirit Home site, and $40 million to build a community center with aquatic facilities.

Several residents spoke against the Spirit Homes plan, and Brad Lacy, president of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber’s members had many questions and concerns.

“We backed up to step 1,” Townsell said. “Moving forward from zero, we decided to do an aquatic study to see how much there was a demand for an aquatic center in Conway. To that, we decided, why don’t we go on and ask more questions about a city-owned community center?”

Townsell said he envisions a center that includes several amenities, including a 50-meter competition pool, other pools, an indoor playground and more amenities than the city-owned McGee Center. It would have a “dry side,” he said, as well as a recreation pool with “slides and sprays” and other features.

The Briarwood Swim Club — an outdoor, privately owned pool in Conway — is for sale on Tyler Street in north-central Conway. Townsell said he has talked to a former Conway Parks and Recreation director, as well as Ibbotson, about the possibility of making it a public pool.

“We’ve actually talked about that at length, … but it’s never been a topic with the City Council,” Townsell said. “In the end, they are the governing body of the city.”

Townsell said the Briarwood location has more negatives than pluses for use as a city aquatic facility.

“The concern is with the general condition [of Briarwood] and the expectation of a city facility; we would probably have to scrap it all,” he said. To create an indoor, public facility for year-round use, “that space is really challenged by parking,” he said.

“It would be a total gut,” Ibbotson said. “We’d demo everything and start new. I don’t believe that site is large enough to do what we think might be the response from the

feasibility study.”

On the plus side, “the location is very central,” Townsell said. “It has a bike trail that leads practically to it.” Gatling Park is across the street.

“That little park is a wonderful trailhead, but it could be an extended trailhead — across, or under, Tyler,” he said.

“There’s still an argument there if you are interested in a neighborhood park and maybe a neighborhood pool, and they are very hit and miss,” Townsell said. “That starts down a whole different philosophy.

“We have not absolutely ruled it out, but it serves a different purpose.”

The location of Spirit Homes was a point of contention, too. Some community leaders thought its placement didn’t lend itself to the lower-socioeconomic segment of the population.

Townsell said he has heard a “host of suggestions” about where an aquatic/community center should go.

“We’re batting around some ideas, but one of the things we want to see come out of this study is some thoughts from our consultants,” he said.

“Some complaints are incompatible. Some [people] were adamant any facility like this should be on the bike trail; others said … it should be near a major road and by the interstate. Wherever you put it, there are going to be people who can’t get to it,” Townsell said.

“If you build an indoor facility, you’re not building three of them; you’re building one, so it’s going to have to be sized for a communitywide facility,” he said.

Ibbotson said consultants met with Conway officials.

“They’ve been in town, and we took them around and visited all the existing aquatic facilities — Hendrix, [the University of Central Arkansas], Briarwood, Conway Regional. We even took them to a couple of apartments that had pools,” Ibbotson said.

Townsell said a city aquatic/community center would be built with Advertising and Promotion funds and would likely have some sort “fee-based system” for users.

“There will definitely have to be a user fee included with it,” Ibbotson said.

Townsell said the Bentonville-Edmond trip is planned for Feb. 22 and 23, and in addition to Ibbotson, Townsell will be accompanied by City

Council members Mark Ledbetter, Shelley Mehl, Andy Hawkins and possibly Shelia Whitmore, as well as Jack Bell, city chief of staff.

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

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