City council begins wading through pool proposal

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A proposal to replace the city’s 40-year-old Hoffman Municipal Pool with a modern aquatic center will be taken up by a special committee, Bellefontaine City Council President Richard Vicario announced Tuesday.

Mr. Vicario said he will appoint members to the committee and it will include Parks Department Supervisor Kris Myers.

After Tuesday’s regular meeting, the council heard from landscape architect Larry Brandstetter and bond specialist Megan Browning.

Mr. Brandstetter of Brandstetter Carroll Inc. said the current pool no longer appeals to the average consumer and there is nothing that can be done to draw in more people.

“You could open it up and offer free admission and you still wouldn’t increase attendance,” he said.

However, a modern aquatic center’s features would draw in more people, he said.

His experience with other communities consistently shows increases in attendance, and sometimes those increases are much greater than predicted.

Wapakoneta, as an example, recently opened an aquatic center. Attendance there jumped from 70 per day at the old municipal pool to 700 to 900 a day, he said.

That was about double his firm’s prediction of 450 a day.

The firm believes a $3.5 million investment in a new center would draw more than 70,000 people each season, up from the current attendance of 23,000.

Revenues would jump to around $235,800 a year while costs would go up slightly to $150,656, up from $140,802. Most of the operational increase would be in more pool staff needed to monitor slides and other aquatic features.

Ms. Browning said the city could expect to get around a 4.5 percent interest rate on its bonds. It would cost about $260,000 a year for 20 years to pay off a $3.5 million bond package.

Councilman David Haw said “I want to thank the park board for putting this together. Now it will be our job to tear it apart to see if we can do it.”

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