The Taylor City Council dipped their toes into the idea of building an indoor pool last week, during discussion of an upcoming feasibility study to build a wellness and recreation center.
“This is an exciting item, one the community has been talking about long before I was here. It’s just ramped up with our growth,” said Tyler Bybee, director of parks and recreation.
He said the city has long been in need of a large indoor community center, citing a shortage of public meeting space and no indoor recreational space.
Last September, the Council approved funding the feasibility study with up to $100,000 from the 2022 Samsung Quality of Life funds. Bybee reported that
See POOL • page 2 the request for quotation was released Feb. 4 and eight companies submitted responses by the March 4 deadline. After interviewing three finalists, the city chose Barker Rinker Seacat Architecture, a firm with 49 years of experience in recreational spaces.
“We don’t design schools. We don’t design business buildings. We don’t design residential. We design recreation architecture,” said Mick Massey, project planner for BRS. “We specialize in this. We study it. We bring our knowledge to bear on this.”
Massey was there to outline the process for council members and discuss how his firm will approach the project. He said the study will have a lot of opportunity for the community to give input and the results will be hyper-personalized to what the citizens of Taylor want.
Based on earlier public comment at Thursday’s meeting, and almost every other meeting for the last two months, what the community wants is a bigger swimming pool. The city recently approved renovation plans for the existing municipal pool at Murphy Park that would add a lot of amenities and water features, but result in a 17% smaller surface area.
Getting a pool inside the community space will depend on the site chosen, or perhaps choosing a site for the wellness center may depend on how much the community wants an indoor pool.
“There are cities way larger than us that have zero public pools anymore because of the cost and operation. That’s a decision we need to make as a community, do we want another outdoor pool or do we want a large indoor pool?” Bybee said.
“It will draw people, it will create membership for your building, but you have to offset that with the cost that it takes to operate and that’s what we want to bring to you so you can decide if it’s a good idea for Taylor or not,” Massey told council members, regarding the indoor pool.
In addition to city and community input, Massey said his team will work directly with an operations firm, a cost estimating group, a water recreation firm and another civil engineering and architecture firm to ensure the study presents a plan that has a workable budget and timeline as well as reflecting community wishes.
Councilmen waded into some concerns for operation and accessibility of a large, robust city recreation center.
“I love knowing what the people want,” Councilman Dwayne Ariola said.
Councilmen appreciated the extensive community input the study would involve.
Ariola wants the city to hire a company to run the facility, rather than running it themselves.
“I don’t want to get the city involved in a rec center business, but I want a rec center,” Ariola said.
Mayor Pro Tem Gerald Anderson said an affordable cost for residents to use the facility as well as a location that people could get to easily were non-negotiable for him, in consideration of the city’s lower income population.
“We want to make sure if the citizens are paying for it they’re going to have access to it,” he said.
The feasibility study will include evaluating potential sites, creating concept options with various sizes and features, estimating project costs for each option and analyzing potential attendance and revenue, among other design and operational considerations.
