Title
Review and Recommend to City Council Approval of a City Aquatic Center and Location
Body
To: Honorable Chair and Members of the Recreation and Park Commission
From: Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director
Re: Review and Recommend to City Council Approval of a City Aquatic Center and Location
BACKGROUND
As part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 - 23 budget, City Council allocated up to $7.5 million, to fund 50% equal cost sharing with the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) to rebuild the Emma Hood Swim Center at Alameda High School. The project has begun and City staff are working closely with District staff. The District is currently conducting necessary investigative work such as soil sampling, which will inform the design options. There will be a full public input process including outreach to school district constituents and the broader Alameda community. That input process is anticipated to start later this fall.
In the FY 2019-20 budget, City Council authorized funding for the City Aquatic Center conceptual design. Staff engaged ELS Architecture + Design and in January and February 2020, the City held community workshops and solicited feedback on pool design options, which was incorporated into the final conceptual design included with this report (Exhibit 2).
On August 13, 2020, the Recreation and Parks Commission recommended a conceptual design to City Council that included a natatorium (indoor pool).
Due to the pandemic, staff determined this project should be paused. There was no funding source for the project and there were other City Council priorities, including a response to the impacts of the pandemic and addressing homelessness and affordable housing. However, throughout the pandemic, interest and participation in aquatic programs has significantly grown. AUSD aquatic teams have grown and requiring more time at the two high school pools and the Alameda Recreation and Parks Department (ARPD) is now providing year-round aquatic programs, nearly all of which are filled to capacity with wait lists.
On February 15, 2022, City Council heard options to fund aquatic facilities in Alameda, including the rebuild of the Emma Hood Swim Center and a City Aquatic Center on a city-owned site. City Council provided general direction to staff to pursue ways to fund both facilities.
DISCUSSION
The Emma Hood Swim Center rebuild will replace the existing facility. However, there remains a deficiency in the amount of pool space available in the City of Alameda. Over the last two years, the Recreation and Parks Department (ARPD) aquatics programs have expanded from registering 700 people for four months out of the year to registering over 9,000 people year-round with regular wait lists. This expansion of aquatics programs has proven to be extremely popular with Alameda residents of all ages from youth swim lessons to seniors participating in Aqua Zumba classes as well as growing lap swim needs. The interest in community based youth swim and water polo teams has also increased but number of youth these groups can serve is limited due to the lack of available pool space. This means they are only able to accept approximately half of the kids who want to participate, unlike other sports such as soccer or baseball/softball, in which every child who wants to participate gets to play the recreational level. The AUSD aquatic team participation also increased and those teams are now generally practicing until 6:30pm or 7:00pm on weekday evenings during their seasons in addition to Saturday games. Therefore community aquatic teams must practice later in the evenings and community programming, such as swim lessons, cannot be offered consistently on weekends due to working around high school team game schedules.
The general design concepts developed in 2020, with both competitive and recreational pools, can be applied to other locations. Options for City-owned locations include the area immediately west of the O’Club or the most western side of Sweeney Park near Constitution Way and Atlantic Avenue (Exhibit 1). The benefit of building on a city-owned site is that the City maintains full control of all operations, costs, and programming as well significantly more time available for community programs and youth and adult aquatics teams. If a new City Aquatic Center is approved and funded by City Council then the design would be updated based on the location and additional public input focused on the community needs.
Location
There are two potential locations and after analyzing all aspects of the sites, staff recommends locating the City Aquatic Center on the western portion of Sweeney Park. The following lists opportunities and challenges of each potential location:
Alameda Point, west of the O’Club and adjacent to Main Street
Opportunities:
• Near the future Regional Sports Complex which could provide complementary amenities.
• Creates economic development for Alameda Landing (one mile), the Webster Street Business District (approximately two miles) and businesses at Alameda Point (just over half a mile or more). This may be further than people would choose to walk.
• Further activates this area of Alameda Point and would well serve existing residents at Alameda Point as well as future residents of the Main Street Neighborhood area. From an equity perspective, this site is in walking distance of residents of Alameda Point Collaborative which houses and supports formerly homeless individuals and families.
• This area is identified in the Alameda Point Zoning Map as within the Adaptive Reuse Area. The use works well in this diverse area that includes light manufacturing, distilleries and food-related businesses, warehousing, institutional and commercial recreation areas.
• Over six acres are available to situate the City Aquatic Center at this site which is more than sufficient space for the facility and associated parking. There is more available space in which to situate the facility and parking.
Challenges:
• Nearly all of this area will be inundated by sea level rise. The Alameda Point Master Infrastructure Plan includes construction of perimeter levees and floodwalls to protect certain areas from 24-inches of sea level rise, subject to identify and securing sufficient funding to construct. However, it is also potentially feasible to construct an above-ground aquatic facility.
• Not easily accessible by bicycle or public transit and requires users to use their vehicles as a primary way to reach the facility. There is not currently a bus line that runs along Main Street. Line 96 is closest, several blocks away on W. Midway Ave.
Sweeney Park western phase at Constitution Way and Atlantic Avenue
Opportunities:
• Building the Aquatic Center at Sweeney Park is an opportunity to complete the entire park. There is an efficiency of scale to grade and install infrastructure for the entire remainder of the park while doing that work for the Aquatic Center. The remaining center phase is comprised of oak trees, landscape, decomposed granite trails for walkers and bike skills loop. The bike components can be installed at a later date with pre-made components. The trees and landscape can be installed by volunteers and contractors over time with the trails completed at a later date as well. The community garden would be completed as part of the Aquatic Center construction.
• Creates West End economic development as it is within walking distance of restaurants and shopping at Webster Street as well as Marina Village, both being approximately 1,200 feet or 0.19 mile from the site. People using the Aquatic Center will often seek out food before and after activities and during day-long meets.
• Easily accessible by bicycle/public transit being located directly adjacent to the Cross Alameda Trail and AC Transit lines 96 and 20 on Webster Street and lines 19 along Atlantic Ave.
• This is a more centrally located site and from an equity perspective, would well serve the residents of three Alameda Housing Authority sites that are within walking distance.
Challenges:
• Situating the Aquatic Center at this site is a change to the design that was developed through a significant public planning process in 2014. Further public education would be required if City Council were to approve the Aquatic Center at this site. The concept is supported by the Jean Sweeney Open Space Park Foundation board of directors and the Alameda Backyard Growers, which has a vested interested in the community garden and supports building it as part of the Aquatic Center project and moving it further east.
• Site could require further soil and groundwater remediation which adds cost. However, in consulting the City’s soils consultants for Sweeney Park, they explained that if the pool were installed below the groundwater level (which is quite possible, especially given sea level rise impacts on rising groundwater) then a pump could be installed and if necessary, a carbon filtration system could clean any contaminated groundwater. The Aquatic Center could also be built as an above-ground facility to avoid soils and groundwater issues.
Both locations would require a parking plan as part of the design. There is sufficient space at either location for vehicular and bicycle parking. Specifically, the current Sweeney Park design already includes 80 parking spaces which could feasibly be expanded to 100 parking spaces. In addition, the Marina Village Business Park staff stated that they strongly support the project and are willing to enter into an agreement to allow the adjacent business park parking areas to be utilized as overflow on weekday evenings and weekends. That parking area is vastly underutilized during those times and most likely would only be needed as overflow during larger-scale events and meets.
The Aquatic Center would be designed and constructed with a Design-Build Model versus the traditional Design-Bid-Build model. This creates significant cost efficiencies and can save 15% -20% of the total project cost. In addition, the team can design to the total budget available rather than create the design and then try to secure full funding to meet that design. This often leads to a construction cost larger than what was estimated in design and then requires value engineering items out of the project. Instead, in a Design-Build Model, the design build team includes both the contractor and architect and they check in with each other throughout the design process. The contractor is reviewing the design as it’s being developed and providing input on what is feasible to construct and what is not. This keeps the final design within the project budget by the firm already contractually committed to build it within that total cost. The process is to publish a request for proposals to solicit design build teams that are experienced in building aquatic centers. There are several reputable teams that do these type of design build projects in California. Once under contract, the team would then be responsible for design (including public input) through construction and opening the facility. This model has not yet been utilized in the City of Alameda but is used by other municipalities and school districts and was confirmed by the City Attorney’s office as appropriate for the City of Alameda under public construction law.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The cost to design and construct the Aquatic Center is roughly estimated to be $20 million. This could be higher if City Council approves the location at Sweeney Park and also approves including using the opportunity to complete the entire park.
Staff is recommending funding the project with a combination of 50% funded by General Fund excess fund balance and the other 50% being financed by a Certificate of Participation bond or General Obligation bond. None of these financing structures require voter approval.
For example, $10 million could be funded by the General Fund excess fund balance with the remaining $10 million financed over 30 years for an approximate annual payment of $600,000. A significant portion of this annual payment could feasibly be funded by the current ARPD General Fund budget. For FY 2021 - 22, ARPD exceeded revenues by over $500,000 and under expended by $692,000 for a total of $1,192,000 excess to the General Fund. This was significantly higher than usual due to a variety of factors, including higher registration than anticipated and the year-round aquatics program which exceeded anticipated revenues by over $250,000. The available fund balance from recreation programs is not anticipated to be this high every year but historically, the ARPD end of year balance exceeds at least $300,000. Therefore, the ARPD revenues from aquatics, rentals and other programs could feasibly fund a significant portion of the annual financing with limited impact on the annual General Fund budget.
RECOMMENDATION
Make a recommendation to City Council to support a City Aquatic Center and recommend a location.
Respectfully submitted,
Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director
Exhibits:
1. Potential Locations Map
2. City Aquatic Center Conceptual Design